Sethi's appointment challenged again

The petitioner requests Islamabad High Court to annul a notification issued by PCB’s patron in chief.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday received a petition, challenging the appointment of Najam Sethi as chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

A day earlier on February 10, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – who is also the PCB’s patron-in-chief – had removed the PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf and appointed an 11-member management committee, headed by Sethi through a notification issued by the ministry of inter-provincial coordination.

"There are serious issues in the management of PCB, repugnant to the aim and object of the PCB and that there is an immediate and emergent need to take necessary measures to improve the management of the PCB, as well as to streamline the game of cricket at all levels in Pakistan," said the IPC’s notification.

Challenging the notification, the petitioner, Ahmed Nawaz, has cited the PCB’s patron-in-chief PM Nawaz, sports secretary, the IPC secretary as well as PCB chairman Najam Sethi, and the committee members as respondents. He has requested the court to declare illegal the notification, appointing Sethi as PCB chairman.

Ahmed Nawaz has said that the whole board was dissolved just to favour Sethi, maintaining that the notification is against the IHC’s earlier judgment. It is to be noted that in October last year the IHC’s same bench had declared illegal the appointment of Sethi on the request of the same petitioner.

Later, a two-judge bench – comprising Justice Riaz Ahmed Khan and Justice Noorul Haq N Qureshi – had also restored Ashraf as the PCB chairman on January 15. The court will take up the matter on February 13.