THE latest row over spot-fixing scam in this year’s Pakistan Super League (PSL), which is being investigated by a three-man tribunal, is now simmering and could reach its boiling point sometime next month.

Mohammad Irfan, one of the accused, has already been given a suspended verdict after he confessed to not reporting his meeting with some suspicious characters in the UAE.

Two other players, Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif, have denied the charges of their involvement in the scam after initial claims by the PCB officials about having ample proof on them. The charges against the two, therefore, are being probed by the tribunal.

But ever since the allegations against the above mentioned players as well as former opener Nasir Jamshed and Shahzaib Khan have come into out in the open, the PSL spot fixing scandal has become a topic of regular debates on TV channels and in the print media.

In relation to the simmering row, a couple of former officials of the Pakistan Cricket Board and a number of former players, who in the past had served the PCB in various capacitie, have regularly been mentioning the Justice Mohammad Qayyum Report of year 2000 and his recommendations against the players.

Invariably they sing the same tune which is, ‘If Justice Qayyum’s report and its recommendations were carried out in letter and spirit, we would not have faced such humiliation as we did in the past when Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were found guilty of spot fixing or the present row which has again brought a bad name to the country.’

I can tell you that when I listen to these people, I could only laugh at their ignorance and half-baked knowledge of what Qayyum Report really is. I bet that not one of them have gone through it in detail to find out about its many shortcoming. Having read the report several times since it came out, I think it is not only flawed in its entirety but based on hypothesis, conjectures and assumptions.

For those who are not aware of what Qayyum Report really was, I would like to inform them that Qayyum was appointed to hold investigation to find out the truth about the allegations of match-fixing during the nineties in which a number of Pakistan players’ names kept cropping up.

The one-man Qayyum tribunal was appointed at the behest of then CEO of PCB Majid Khan who pressed with then President of Pakistan Chaudhry Mohammad Rafiq Tarar to order thorough investigation into the allegations of match-fixing against the players.

The probe lasted just over a year — from September 1998 to October 1999 — and was submitted to then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. However, Sharif’s govt was ousted soon afterwards in a coup by General Parvez Musharraf.

During the period of investigation Khalid Mahmood, then PCB chief, and Majid Khan also left the Board. Mujeebur-Rehman and Zafar Altaf — the short term caretakers — also were soon replaced by Lt Gen Tauqir Zia who sat on the report for several months before finally publishing it in year 2000 after which there was withering criticism over it from many famous players.

Except for one legal adviser, Qayyum was alone with no police or detectives at his disposal, no telephone recordings were scrutinised and Qayyum moaned that the system was not in place to deal with the problem.

No wonder then he was unable to produce any proof against those who were recommended to be fined. He may have had proof against Salim Malik and Ata-ur-Rehman to ban them but he himself wrote in his report: ‘The allegations that the Pakistan team as a whole is involved in match-fixing is just based on allegations, conjectures and surmises without there being positive proof. As a whole the Pakistan team are innocent.’

The biggest howler in his report is a statement that he gave in the report about Pakistan’s tour of India in 1979-80.

‘For the Pakistan team the allegation of match-fixing seems to have started when Asif Iqbal was the captain of the Pakistan team in 1979-80. Asif was accused of betting on the toss. Gundappa Vishwanath, an Indian cricketer in his book has written that when he went for the toss with the Pakistan skipper, the latter without completing the toss, congratulated Vishwanath for winning it.’

Now that is a totally concocted statement by Justice Qayyum which sums up his ambiguous report based on suspicion and hearsay, simply because Vishwanath to this day has not written any book ever. Only last year a book has come out on him written by an Indian scribe.

Time and again Qayyum has admitted too on TV interviews that he was under pressure from various quarters during his investigation — referring to political pressure of course — to soft pedal his recommendations.

When a judge admits that he was under pressure and faced interference, then is he really in a position to be fair in his decision making. It would obviously be impaired which it certainly was. In fact, the then government’s message to him was not to paint a bleak picture in the investigation.

According to him Wasim Akram was not found guilty of match-fixing on grounds of ‘insufficient evidence.’ And he gave him the benefit of doubt after Ata-ur-rehman changed his mind and was guilty of perjury.

But in the next sentence, he says, ‘Wasim is not above board. He has not co-operated with this commission. That he along with Mushtaq Ahmed should not be considered for any job with the PCB.’

If nothing has been proven against him or the others who were fined like Wasim, Waqar Younis, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saeed Anwar, Mushtaq Ahmed, then why did he recommend any punishment is beyond my sensibilities.

In a recent TV show in which I confronted the esteemed Judge, he admitted to have fined the players for ‘ not coming out with the truth’ and not for match fixing.

Not coming out with the truth? How one would gauge that when sitting alone in judgement. Isn’t this a valid question?

Mushtaq, now a PCB employee, in his poorly written autobiography moaned, ‘Rule of law was not upheld and I was punished without being found guilty. I am even more certain that something was happening behind the scene.’

‘I went to PCB and told them that I was not going to pay the fine. They said, ‘whatever happens we just want to finish this business. You pay the money and claim it later. I never received the money back’ wrote Mushtaq.

I am not surprised, therefore, that the PCB right from the day the it was made public did not really act on Qayyum Report and kept on engaging Waqar, Mushtaq and at times Wasim because the report lacked any proof of match-fixing against those who were fined and sullied by it.

I only wish that the present ongoing investigation is not as presumptuous, vague and based on conjectures.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2017

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