Cricket: Modi issues legal proceedings against Cairns

Chris Cairns. New Zealand Herald Photograph by Dean Purcell.

Lalit Modi has issued legal proceedings against Chris Cairns to claw back $4.9 million in damages and costs.

Mr Modi, the former head of the Indian Premier League, has also applied to the High Court in London to have the libel verdict won by Cairns in 2012 to be set aside on the grounds of fraud.

In an email to the Herald, Modi's lawyer, Rajesh Vyakarnam, said: "Mr Modi has issued proceedings to set aside the 2012 libel judgment on the ground of fraud and is claiming the return of all damages and costs paid which are in excess of £2.4m.

"Mr Modi is still bound by the injunction awarded by Justice Bean and does not wish to prejudice the [Crown Prosecution Service's] case against Mr Cairns or Mr Fitch-Holland. He will therefore not make any further comments at this time."

Cairns was awarded $183,000 in damages after successfully suing Modi for libel for accusing him of involvement in corruption while playing in the now defunct Indian Cricket League in 2008.

But Cairns has this year been arrested and charged by the London Metropolitan Police with perjury in relation to evidence given at the libel trial.

It effectively means Cairns is now fighting for his reputation and possible future in the sport on two fronts - a High Court trial, scheduled for next October, and a civil case against the man he took to court in 2012.

While the cases are essentially the same in the fact they boil down to whether Cairns' was telling the truth when he told the High Court he had never been involved in match-fixing, the burden of proof could differ from one proceedings to the other.

Cairns appeared at Southwark Crown Court last month alongside Andrew Fitch-Holland, a barrister and friend who gave evidence in the libel trial and has been charged with perverting the course of justice. The case has been adjourned for a further preliminary hearing in.

The 2010 case was the first Twitter libel trial in England. Modi, then chairman of the IPL, tweeted in January 2010 that he had prevented Cairns joining the auction for the T20 league due to his links with corruption.

Justice Bean ruled that he "singularly failed" to provide any reliable evidence that Cairns was involved in fixing. In his written judgment Justice Bean said: "It is obvious that an allegation that a professional cricketer is a match-fixer goes to the core attributes of his personality and, if true, entirely destroys his reputation for integrity."

After winning the case Cairns said a "dark cloud" had been lifted and he could finally "walk into any cricket ground in the world with my head held high".

But the Herald revealed in December last year that Cairns was again under investigation by the International Cricket Council anti-corruption unit, along with Lou Vincent and Daryl Tuffey.

Vincent has since confessed to widespread match-fixing across at least three countries and has received multiple life bans from the sport.

Cairns has consistently denied the allegations.