Cash-strapped Indian Premier League side Deccan Chargers on Thursday lost another attempt to remain in the lucrative competition after a court backed their expulsion.
The Bombay High Court quashed an arbitrator's order that had stopped the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from going ahead with its decision to throw the Chargers out of the Twenty20 league.
"The arbitrator had no jurisdiction," judge R.D. Dhanuka was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency. "No case is made out... for granting stay on termination."
The BCCI, which owns the IPL, has already invited bids to set up a new team in place of the Chargers, who were removed for financial violations including its failure to pay salaries to players.
Deccan Chronicle Holdings, a media company that bought the Hyderabad-based team for $107 million before the inaugural IPL in 2008, had failed to submit $19 million as guarantee money -- to prove it could pay its debts and players -- last week as ordered by the Bombay High Court.
The company's assertion that it had agreed to sell the Chargers franchise to a Mumbai-based real estate firm and needed more time to pay the guarantee money was rejected by the court.
The BCCI must now select a new franchise in the nine-team competition and also decide the fate of the players who were contracted to the Deccan Chargers.
Bids for the new team must be lodged by October 25, with the sixth edition of the IPL scheduled for April-May next year.