LAHORE: The lawyer of cricketer Khalid Latif suffered yet another setback on Friday as the Anti-corruption Tribunal of the Pakistan Cricket Board rejected his objections over the eligibility of Justice Asghar Haider Rizvi to head the tribunal in the PSL spot-fixing case.

In a related development, the lawyer of key suspect in the case, opener Nasir Jamshed, failed to submit his answering brief to the tribunal.

One-man disciplinary tribunal of Justice (retd.) Fazal Miran Chohan dismissed the petition of Khalid’s lawyer objecting that Justice Asghar, as former legal advisor of the PCB, was not eligible to hear the PSL spot-fixing case in which the PCB was the main party. Justice Fazal in his short order issued on Friday said that Justice Asghar could hear the case.

Earlier, Khalid’s lawyer had challenged the standing of the tribunal before the Lahore High Court, which also rejected the petition and ordered him and his client to appear before the tribunal.

Khalid’s lawyer adopted the stance that neither the PCB chairman could appoint anti-corruption tribunal, nor the tribunal had any legal standing because its proceedings are against the constitution of the country.

Meanwhile, opener Nasir’s lawyer Hasan Warriach did not submit the answering brief before the tribunal and sought some more time, because his client was in London and he could not travel to Pakistan. It may be mentioned that the National Crime Agency of England (NCAE) had seized his passport in the same case of spot-fixing.

However, Hasan asserted that the PCB had no proof against his client in the spot-fixing case. He said the PCB should give the proof in public or it would face humiliation. He claimed that the PCB just had screen shots in which the players were just having normal conversation to some persons who were later painted as bookies.

He also said that England’s NCAE also had no proof against his client Nasir Jamshed and that was why it was not providing any proof to the PCB.. It may be mentioned here that in the first week of June, the PCB had requested the tribunal to stop the hearing because the NCA had received more solid evidences against the players and it would hand over those to the PCB in the last week of June. But the lawyers of the cricketers succeeded in opposing the PCB’s petition. However, the month of June has also passed and the PCB is yet to receive any proofs from the NCAE.

The lawyer surprised everyone by disclosing that the hearing of Nasir in London had been deferred till October this year, instead of being held in the last week of June.

The lawyer further said he would produce Yousuf and an Englishman named James as witnesses for Nasir Jamshed, who both are being considered as main culprits in the case of spot-fixing by the PCB.

Meanwhile, PCB’s lawyer Tafazul Rizvi said that Nasir’s lawyer had not yet informed the tribunal that why did NCAE seized the passport of his client in England was not ready to hand it back to the cricketer despite the passage of several months.

Tafazul also rejected the stance of Nasir’s lawyer in challenging the tribunal to open the proceeding for the public. He said it was not a bout between two wrestlers but a legal case which must be run according to the laws.

The PCB counsel said Nasir’s lawyer had no ground to claim that the PCB lacked proofs against his client since the Board was yet to furnish the tribunal with the proof against the opener. He added that if the PCB had no proof against the suspected cricketers, they would have gone to the legal courts of the country. “Nasir is not even ready to appear before the tribunal through Skype,” argued Tafazul.

He further said the hearing against Shahzaib Hasan, another accused cricketer, might be deferred for the second week of July.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2017