Shaharyar Khan elected chairman PCB

#GNN - LAHORE: Former diplomat Shaharyar Khan was Monday elected Pakistan´s cricket chief for a three-year term, a move aimed at ending a 14-month leadership tussle which has left the governing body in disarray.

Khan, 80, becomes the 30th chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) but the only one to have a second tenure, having held the post between December 2003 to October 2006.

Khan was elected unopposed under the Board´s new constitution adopted last month in a bid to resolve the dispute triggered in May last year when then-chairman Zaka Ashraf was suspended by Islamabad High Court.

After Ashraf´s suspension, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appointed veteran journalist Najam Sethi as PCB head. But court orders and government decrees saw Sethi swapping power with Ashraf five times.

The Supreme Court last month ordered elections under the new constitution and named a retired judge as interim PCB chief and election commissioner.

The PCB said in a statement Khan was unanimously elected unopposed by the 10-member board of governors.

Khan, who also served as the country´s foreign secretary between 1990-94, was appointed PCB head by military ruler General Pervez Musharraf but was removed after the fiasco in the Oval Test against England in 2006. Pakistan forfeited that Test after then-skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq refused to lead the team onto the field in protest at being penalised by the umpires for ball-tampering.

Khan was blamed for not handling the matter properly. But his experience as foreign secretary was credited as being instrumental in reviving Pakistan-India ties in 1999. Then Pakistan toured India after a gap of 12 years, with Khan as team manager. (GNN)(AFP)(AIP)

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• IHC reinstates Zaka Ashraf as PCB chairman (pakistantoday.com.pk)

IHC issues contempt notices to CEO ARY Salman Iqbal, Lucman, others

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday issued contempt of court notices to Chief Executive Officer of ARY Network Salman Iqbal, anchor Mubashir Lucman, acting chairman Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Pervez Rathore and secretary information, and summoned them to appear in person in the next hearing.

IHC judge Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui was hearing the petition filed by the District Bar against the ARY Network for broadcasting anti-judiciary content.

The petitioner stated that the programmes containing anti-judiciary content were broadcast from May 22 to 31 criticising the Supreme Court’s judge Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja.

Justice Shaukat Aziz remarked that contempt proceedings are lawful as the programmes broadcast on ARY were an attack on superior judiciary.

The court ordered the concerned parties to appear in the court to explain why the channel telecast such malicious programmes for ten days, and why the regulatory authority did not intervene.

Later, the court summoned Salman Iqbal, Mubashir Lucman and other concerned parties in the first week of July and adjourned the hearing. (GNN)(Thenews)

CJP convenes judicial commission on May 28 to deliberate on 3 new judges for IHC

Three posts in the IHC were vacant. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jillani has summoned a meeting of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) on May 28 to deliberate over the appointment of three additional judges of Islamabad High Court, GNN learnt on Saturday.

Sources told Media that Islamabad High Court chief justice Muhammad Anwar Kasi has recommended the name of lawyer Athar Minallah for the post of IHC judge.

Minallah belongs to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and had served as the spokesperson for former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhy during the lawyers’ movement.

According to the IHC Act 2010, the capital’s high court comprises of one chief justice and six judges who would be appointed from all provinces and FATA.

After the retirement of Justice Riaz Ahmad Khan last week, the post of a judge elevated from K-P was lying vacant. IHC CJ has thus proposed the name of Minallah for the slot.

The sources further said that the IHC CJ had proposed four further names for posts of Islamabad and Balochistan based judge. For this purpose, Justice Kasi has proposed the names of Mian Abdul Rauf and Anees Jillani for a seat in the high court for Islamabad.  The names of Sher Shah Kasi and Tahir Shah have been proposed for the post of IHC judge from Balochistan.

A sub-committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Rahmat Hussain Jaferi will meet on May 27 to shortlist two names from the four nominees.

Earlier, CJP had summoned a meeting of the JCP on April 10 to review the appointments in the IHC. Later, a JCP sub-committee, which was due to shortlist names, was postponed.

The strength of the Islamabad High Court has been reduced to three judges after the retirement of senior-most judge Justice Riaz Ahmad Khan last week.

The capital’s high court should have seven serving judges, but due to shortage of judges, and a backlog of over 13,000 cases, was causing problems to litigants.

Meanwhile, the Islamabad High Court Bar Association President Mohsin Kayani has warned of protests if the names of the capital’s lawyers as IHC judges were not considered.

Kayani, while talking to Media, lamented that since the re-establishment of the court in 2010, no judge had been appointed from the cadre of Islamabad based lawyers.