The Board of Control for Cricket in India has challenged an arbitrator's ruling, making Ajay Jadeja eligible for selection for Ranji Trophy matches.

On Friday, two days before the award was to become binding if it had gone unchallenged, the Board filed a petition in the Delhi high court, challenging arbitrator Justice J K Mehra's decision.

The January 27 ruling of the arbitrator would have become effective on Sunday at the expiry of the 90-day period.

"The BCCI has decided to challenge the award before the Delhi high court. The decision was taken after obtaining legal opinion," BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya said in Kolkata.

Jadeja's lawyer Vineet Malhotra said it would not be possible for him to say anything right about the petition.

"We will see to it (petition) as and when it will come up for hearing," he said, when asked about the grounds on which the award has been challenged.

"The Board would be in a better position to tell you about it," he said, adding that Jadeja is yet to be served with a copy of the petition.

Asked whether BCCI's petition is to scuttle the April 24 high court order, asking the Board to consider Jadeja for selection in the Ranji Trophy matches if found eligible, Malhotra said: "It would be unfair for me to say anything."

The court order to this effect was on a petition by Jadeja, seeking direction to the Board of Control for Cricket in India following the arbitrator's award given three months ago.

Justice Mehra, who was appointed arbitrator by the high court had, on January 27, quashed the five-year ban imposed on Jadeja by the BCCI for his alleged involvement in the match-fixing scandal and cleared him to play at both domestic and international levels.

The arbitrator had held that the report of K Madhavan (former CBI joint director) was illegal and against the principles of natural justice and had set aside the findings of the Disciplinary Committee on the basis of which a ban was imposed on Jadeja on December 5, 2000.

Justice Mehra, a retired high court judge, in his order had said that Jadeja will have the right to play domestic and international cricket at all levels "as if the ban was not there" but subject to his selection by the concerned authorities.

Jadeja had approached the high court on February 2, 2001, challenging the BCCI order imposed on the basis of K Madhavan's recommendations following a preliminary report by the CBI indicting both Jadeja and former captain Mohammad Azharuddin.

Azharuddin was banned for life by the BCCI.

Both Jadeja and Azharuddin have maintained throughout that they had absolutely no involvement in the match-fixing scandal.