ISLAMABAD: Najam Sethi came out happy after the Supreme Court reinstated him as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Wednesday, but he declined to answer questions put by waiting journalists.

Mr Sethi, a television anchor and columnist, had come along with his counsel Asma Jehangir to attend a court hearing on an appeal moved by the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination challenging the May 17 Islamabad High Court judgment of reinstating Zaka Ashraf as the PCB chairman.

“It is a clear message for those who are playing the musical chair,” Sethi said while talking to reporters but was not ready to answer their questions.

When asked why the Nawaz Sharif government picked no-one else but him to lead the PCB, he retorted that he had been reinstated by the high court. But a question about his tax returns appeared to have put him on the edge.

He eventually left the premises but not before saying that he would not occupy the office even for a single day if he was not needed. He also brushed aside the oft-repeated allegations about “mending 35 punctures” and said that there was not a single evidence which could prove that he had played a role as Punjab’s interim chief minister in last year’s general elections.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, which had taken up the petition filed on Tuesday, suspended the operation of the high court judgment restoring Zaka Ashraf and setting aside the PCB management committee along with its chairman Najam Sethi.

While granting leave to appeal against the IHC verdict, the apex court also issued notices to Arbab Altaf Hussain, a member of the PCB’s scrutiny committee who had filed the petition in the high court, PCB’s Director HR and Administration retired Brig Sajid Hameed, PCB’s Patron-in-Chief who happens to be the prime minister, the PCB through its interim management committee chairman, secretary of the inter-provincial coordination ministry, the federal government through sports secretary, former PCB chief Shaharyar Khan and cricketers Zaheer Abbas, Naveed Akram Cheema, Shakeel Sheikh, Yousuf Nadeem Khokar and Iqbal Qasim.

The court will resume hearing on May 27.

The rollercoaster events started when Zaka Asharaf’s appointment as PCB chairman by former president Asif Zardari was challenged in the high court which overturned his appointment.

Later, the PML-N government brought Mr Sethi who terminated 25 PCB employees and appointed the management committee to streamline the affairs of the board and conduct fresh elections for the chairman.

On Wednesday, Asma Jehangir argued before the three-judge bench that the high court judgment was an absolute fixture and created chaos that would have a long-term detrimental effect ruining and isolating the game of cricket in Pakistan and also putting at peril the reforms introduced by the administration under Mr Sethi. The judgment also struck a fatal blow to the PCB losing credibility in the international cricket.

She accused the former management of wasting millions of rupees on foreign tours and termed Zaka Ashraf a “politicised chairman”.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2014