Islamabad HC issues contempt of court notice to PCB chief

Karachi: There was more trouble for the suspended chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Najam Sethi on Friday when the Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued him a contempt of court notice for continuing to perform his duties in the board in defiance of court orders.

The IHC has restrained Sethi from working as the PCB chief and ordered fresh elections in the board. A citizen, Ahmed Nawaz filed the contempt application, seeking proceedings against Sethi for ignoring court orders. The counsel for Nawaz, Advocate Abdul Razak Rajab in his contempt application had maintained that despite the court order Sethi was performing his duties which amounted to contempt of court. "Sethi used contemptuous language against an IHC judge during a talk show of a TV channel and also on social website Twitter, saying that he is still the chairman of the board," Rajab told the court. A two member bench of the IHC today while hearing the petition ordered issuance of contempt of court notice to the suspended PCB chief. Pakistan cricket has been in a state of constant turmoil since July when Sethi was appointed as acting Chairman of the board by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after the IHC judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, on a constitutional writ petition had declared the elections of Zaka Ashraf in May as null and void. More drama followed when the same judge also stopped Sethi from exercising his powers as Chairman and on October 29, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui had suspended Sethi and barred him from performing his duties for failing to comply with a legal order to elect a permanent PCB chairman. However, after a couple of hours, a division bench, at the same court granted a stay order on the suspension ruling until November 4. The IHC has appointed a former judge of the supreme court, Munir A Sheikh to conduct the elections of the board by the third week of November and ordered the PCB to pay him a fee of 2.5 million rupees besides bearing all his other expenses for this work. The court has ordered the board to pay the amount to the retired judge three days after receiving the court order copy which the PCB says it got on Thursday.