London: Former New Zealand cricket captain Chris Cairns has been given a green signal by a court to sue former chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Lalit Modi for posting a message on Twitter about dropping the Kiwi cricketer from the IPL auction earlier this year.
Modi had said on his twitter page that Cairns was being withdrawn from the auction due to a match-fixing taint.
In the message Modi rejected Cairns' submission to join IPL auction intimating that he had been sacked from rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) because of match-fixing.
Cairns, however, denied the charges and said that he left the Chandigarh Lions (ICL team he used to play for) because of fitness problems after damaging his knees while completing a 1,000km walk for a charity.
The Twitter message was removed after 16 hours but Cairns, who retired from Test cricket in 2004, claimed that the damage had been already done.
Justice Tugendhat at the High Court here rejected a call yesterday from Modi for the case to be halted.
The Court heard evidence from an expert on Modi's behalf who estimated there were only 35 readers of the tweet while evidence for Cairns put it at about 100.
According to a report in The Times, Andrew Caldecott, QC, representing Cairns, said the post was "sensational".
