LAHORE, Oct 22: A division bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has been formed to hear the appeal of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Oct 29 against the decision of IHC single bench of Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqi, under which interim chairman PCB was allowed to work only on a day-to-day basis and was asked to conduct the elections for the new chairman by Oct 18.

The single bench had given the decision about three months ago and the PCB had filed a petition against the decision but have since been waiting for the formation of the division bench to hear it. In the meantime, however, the period given to the Election Commission of Pakistan and the PCB to hold the chairman’s election expired on Oct 18.

A contempt of court petition was then filed before the single bench of Justice Shaukat Aziz against the PCB for not holding the elections despite the court orders to do so.

On Monday, the IHC single bench ordered the PCB to hold the chairman’s elections by Nov 2 after the Election Commissioner also showed the readiness to play its role according to the order of the honourable judge.

When contacted, PCB’s legal adviser Tafazzul Rizvi told Dawn that the Board had already filed an appeal against the first decision of the IHC for which the division bench has now been formed to hear the case on Oct 29. He added that the appeal against the fresh decision of the single bench was also being challenged.

When asked how the prime minister could act as the PCB patron in place of the president to form the interim management committee, Tafazzul said that an amendment in the PCB constitution had been made following the order of the IHC in which it had stated that after the 18th amendment the prime minister had assumed all the powers that the president enjoyed before.

He disclosed that the prime minister formed the IMC after making the necessary amendment in the PCB’s constitution to become the patron-in-chief of the Board in place of the president. He further disclosed that the clause 41 of the previous PCB constitution had also been amended by the patron which allowed him to also extend the period of IMC from three months, subject to reason given in writing.

It may be mentioned here that the PCB general body had decided way back in 1948 to create a post of patron-in-chief of the PCB and offered it to the head of state (then Governor General of Pakistan Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah) and later it was transferred to the president after the governor general’s post was abolished.

Principally, the general body is the right forum to make amendments in the PCB constitution and to change its patron-in-chief. But now as the government has hijacked all the powers of the general body, it has been reduced to a dummy.