ISLAMABAD: Ousted chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Najam Sethi on Sunday announced that he would challenge the Islamabad High Court's decision of reinstating Zaka Ashraf as the PCB chairman, in the country's apex court, DawnNews reported.
Sethi said the court judgement would be challenged “vigorously and swiftly.”
"The good steps we took to professionalise and invigorate cricket and clean up the PCB will not be allowed to go in vain,” Sethi told AFP.
Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi of the IHC on May 17 had set aside the Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) issued by the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) government which brought Najam Sethi in the PCB as chairman and also reversed the termination of 38 PCB employees carried out the Sethi regime.
While announcing the decision to the challenge the IHC's decision in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Sethi reiterated his stance of correcting and cleaning up the board's system and indicated at conducting elections in this regard.
He added that the board's constitution had been prepared already with the help of two former Supreme Court judges but the process was suspended due to the court's decision.
“Two ex-Supreme court judges submitted a draft of a democratic PCB constitution to the federal government last week. I wrote to the government to vet it, promulgate it and hold PCB chairman and board elections before 9th June,” said Sethi, who is also a veteran journalist.
Zaka Ashraf has vowed to review all decisions taken by the Sethi-led management committee, including those of coaches.
“A good number of decisions and appointments have been made by the previous PCB set-up. I will review each one of them to decide if these were made on merit,” Ashraf had told media.
The frequent changes in PCB's set up has raised concerns in the International Cricket Council (ICC), which finds it difficult to finalise important issues with frequent changes in Pakistan cricket management.