Hat-trick: Sethi reinstated as PCB chairman for a 3rd time

SC suspends enforcement of PCB’s new constitution as well as govt’s July 10 notification.

ISLAMABAD:

A day after he was sacked, Najam Sethi was restored as acting chairman Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) by the Supreme Court. He is the first chief of the cricketing body to be removed from and reinstated on the position for a third time in less than a year.

A two-judge bench of the apex court – headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali – on Friday suspended the enforcement of the PCB’s new constitution, as well as federal government’s July 10 notification.

Through the notification, the government had removed the PCB’s managing committee, headed by Sethi, and appointed former SC judge Jamshed Ali Shah as election commissioner to hold election of the PCB chairmanship within 30 days.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is also PCB’s patron-in-chief, had also nominated Sethi and Iqbal Umar as members of PCB’s governing body. Under the new constitution, the election was to take place between these two members.

The bench observed that the judicial orders could not be abandoned through executive decisions. “Who has given the authority to the prime minister to violate court orders?” the bench asked.

The bench also expressed reservation over Sethi’s appointment as one of the two members of PCB’s new governing body and asked Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Salman Aslam Butt if the prime minister would take any step to remove Sethi from the body.

The AGP requested the bench to maintain the patron-in-chief’s arrangements regarding election for the PCB chairman.

On the other hand, the bench asked Sethi if he was willing to relinquish his membership of the governing body. Sethi said if his removal would benefit the PCB then he was ready to give up his position. “But the PM has shown full confidence in me,” he said, adding that if the PM asked him to contest the election for the PCB chairman, then he would be willing to do so.

The court suspended the government’s notification and restored Sethi as acting PCB chairman. The court also admitted for hearing a Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination appeal against Islamabad High Court’s May 17 judgment, whereby Zaka Ashraf was restored as PCB’s chairman. The hearing was adjourned until July 21.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2014.