Former Pakistan international Danish Kaneria has lost his final legal challenge in England against a life ban imposed for spot-fixing while playing for county side Essex, it was announced on Tuesday.

Judge Stanley Burton, sitting in the Court of Appeal, said an application by Kaneria to appeal against a life ban imposed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in June 2012 was “totally without merit”.

Burton also decided Kaneria could not request the decision to be reconsidered at an oral hearing.

Kaneria has exhausted all the legal options available to him in England to appeal a life ban which, under reciprocal arrangements between all members of the International Cricket Council, means the 33-year-old legspinner is barred from playing cricket worldwide.

ECB chairman Giles Clarke, responding to the ruling, said in a statement: “ECB welcomes today’s decision to dismiss the application by Mr Kaneria to appeal the life ban imposed for his corrupt activity.

“Mr Kaneria acted as a recruiter of potential ‘spot-fixers’ and used his seniority and international experience to target and corrupt a young and vulnerable player.

“It is high time that Mr Kaneria came clean about his involvement in these corrupt activities and stopped misleading the Pakistan cricket fans and wider public with his empty protestations of innocence.

“We once again urge him to apologise publicly for his past actions and to start the process of redeeming himself by supporting the Pakistan Cricket Board’s anti-corruption initiatives and assisting the police and law enforcement bodies in the Asian sub-continent with the vital job of exposing and cutting off the primary source of cricket corruption.”

In May, Britain’s High Court rejected Kaneria’s bid to overturn the ECB ban for encouraging teammate Mervyn Westfield to bowl badly as part of a spot-fixing scam.

The ECB had charged Kaneria, then playing for Essex, with inducing Westfield to “deliberately concede” runs in a limited overs match against Durham.

The ban was subsequently applied globally by the ICC and Kaneria lost an appeal with the ECB disciplinary panel in July last year.

The ECB took disciplinary action against Kaneria after former fast bowler Westfield agreed to “spot fix” and was jailed, the London court heard.

Three other Pakistani players – Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer – are serving five-year bans as a result of a separate 2010 spot-fixing case.

Asif was also stopped from playing an exhibition match in Norway last year.