London:  Former Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi Wednesday lost his appeal against the 90,000-pound libel award to ex-New Zealand cricket captain Chris Cairns over unfounded accusation of match-fixing.

The Guardian reported that three judges in the Court of Appeal, headed by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, said the "awards were proportionate to the seriousness of the allegation and its direct impact on Cairns himself - and would serve to vindicate his reputation".

The 42-year-old Cairns had sued Modi over an "unequivocal allegation" on Twitter in January 2010. Modi had tweeted that the New Zealander was removed from the IPL auction list because of his involvement in alleged match-fixing.

Cairns said that Modi's tweet turned his achievements to "dust". Earlier this year in March, Justice David Bean, in his first decision on the Twitter libel case, gave the verdict in favour of Cairns.

Bean ruled that Modi had "singularly failed" to provide any reliable evidence of Cairns' involvement in match-fixing or spot-fixing.

"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.

"The allegation is not as serious as one of involvement in terrorism or sexual offences (to take two examples from recent cases). But it is otherwise as serious an allegation as anyone could make against a professional sportsman," Beans had said in his ruling.

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