New Delhi (AFP) – A court has ordered India’s cricket board to pay more than $640 million to former Indian Premier League champions Deccan Chargers for illegal termination of the franchise.

The Chargers, which were owned by the Deccan Chronicle newspaper group, were kicked out of the IPL in 2012 by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for financial breaches.

The action was taken a day before the team’s deadline to settle matters however. And the Bombay High Court ruled Friday that the termination was illegal and premature, a legal representative of Deccan Chronicle told AFP.

“They have been directed to pay 48 billion rupees ($640 million) plus taxes which might amount to about 80 billion,” the legal representative said on condition of anonymity.

“We haven’t received the judgement copy yet, only after reading we will decide next plan of action,” Hemang Amin, the interim chief executive of the BCCI, was quoted as saying by the Economic Times newspaper.

In 2017, the Kochi Tuskers Kerala team won a similar arbitration case over its termination six years earlier.

The IPL is the world’s most popular Twenty20 league but has been plagued by controversy since it started in 2008, with corruption and match-fixing cases often taking centre-stage.

A spot-fixing scandal in 2013 led to the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals being suspended for two seasons.