Daily Times

LAHORE: Former Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Najam Sethi, through his lawyer, on Friday responded back to the PCB’s reply over his legal notice served earlier for ‘defaming him’. In his legal notice, Sethi had maintained that wrong figures about his benefits and allowances were made public on the PCB’s website to defame him. Sethi said yesterday that he was not satisfied with the reply of the PCB. In his reply to the PCB, a copy of which is with Daily Times, Sethi said: “The contents of your reply do not exonerate the PCB. Instead, they only incriminate the PCB more deeply.”

The reply clearly stated that the PCB’s ‘disclosures’ regarding Sethi in the ordinary course of business and pursuant to a ‘transparency and accountability policy’ were completely incorrect.

“As of 20 August 2018, no such transparency and accountability policy relating to expenses and benefits of members of the Board of Governors of the PCB, the Chairman of the PCB or heads of committees set up by the BoG had been approved by the Board of the PCB, “ the reply added. Sethi made it clear to the new administration of the PCB that no such policy had been adopted by the BoG after 20 August 2018 either. “No such policy is shown to have been adopted in the minutes of any BoG meeting since the new Chairman was elected. The PCB reply is therefore false.” Sethi reiterated once again, in his reply to the PCB, that publication of the chart was therefore self-evidently a deliberate and mala-fide attempt to defame him.

Sethi stated that the PCB has now admitted in its reply that he did not take the amount of Rs14,181,570 as allowance for being the Pakistan Super League (PSL) Chairman. “Indeed, even today, the PCB does not claim that it made out any such cheque for the remaining amount of the PSL Allowance. It is therefore again evident that the amounts shown as PSL Allowance in the Chart were only included to malign Sethi.” Sethi’s reply to the PCB also disclosed information regarding a furnished apartment being provided to PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani.

The reply to the PCB further stated: “The majority of Sethi’s expenses were not approved retrospectively. The PCB admits that Sethi never received the PSL Allowance. Furthermore, the PSL Allowance was not approved for Sethi exclusively but was earlier approved by the Board of the PCB for about twenty different individuals, all of whom have actually received their PSL Allowance since 2015 (unlike Sethi) and none of whom have had their expenses and allowances published.” The PCB intentionally did not disclose expenses of former PCB Chief Shaharyar Mohammad Khan and other top officials. Sethi once again demanded that the PCB and Ehsan Mani apologise to him for this blatantly malicious attack on him.

Published in Daily Times, November 17^th 2018.