LAHORE: Former Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, Najam Sethi, on Friday issued another legal notice to the PCB after not being satisfied with the reply to the first notice he sent late last month in a case of defamation.

Sethi issued the first legal notice on Oct 29 after the PCB put figures of his perks and benefits on its website.

Disagreeing with the figures, Sethi issued a legal notice to the Board and warned it of a legal action for defaming his name.

On Nov 9, the PCB sent a reply to Sethi against his first legal notice. However on Friday, he sent another legal notice as he was not satisfied with the reply.

To a question, Sethi told Dawn sending the second notice to the PCB was a legal requirement, adding if they do not apologise to him (Sethi), he will have no other option but to move the court against the Board for what he called its attempt to defame him.

Sources told Dawn that Ehsan Mani has been advised within the PCB not to get involved in any such activities like posting the details of previous chairmen on the website, as it may trigger a controversy.

However, sources added, Ehsan differed with the advice just because he might be facing pressure from high-ups.

In his second legal notice, Sethi rejected PCB’s stance that the figures about his perks and benefits were issued as an ordinary practice.

“In the light of the foregoing we reiterate our demand that the PCB and Mr. Ehsan Mani apologise to Mr Najam Sethi for this blatantly malicious attack on him. It is not in dispute that the figures published by the PCB are misleading and incorrect. The reply claims that this disclosure was motivated solely by PCB’s transparency and accountability policy but no such policy has been actually produced or referred to the reply. The reply also fails to enumerate any single instance where any comparable disclosure has been made by the PCB in the past. And the reply further fails to disclosure has been made by the PCB in the past. And the reply further fails to disclose any rational reason why the chart focuses almost exclusively on the expenses of Mr Sethi,” it concludes.

Meanwhile, while giving reply to PCB’s responses, the legal notice states, “As of Aug 20, 2018, no such “transparency and accountability policy” relating to expenses and benefits of members of the PCB Board of Governors, Chairman of the PCB or heads of committees set up by the BoG had been approved by the Board of the PCB.

“To the best of Mr Sethi’s knowledge, no such policy has been adopted by the BoG after Aug 20, 2018 either. No such policy shown to have been adopted in the minutes of any BoG meeting since the new Chairman (Ehsan Mani) was elected. The reply is therefore false,” he said.

About PCB’s reply relating to two controversial amounts of Rs14,181,570 as PSL allowance and of Rs6,064,516 Sethi has replied: “You claim that there are no amounts noted in the Chart which are incorrect. This is false. The chart is titled “chairman PCB expense and benefits” and if notes an amount of Rs14,181,570 as “PSL Allowance” paid to Mr Sethi. However, you have now admitted that this amount was never paid to Mr Sethi. It is therefore an admitted fact that the chart is misleading and incorrect.

“The reply claims that the amounts stated in the chart are not misleading because the amount of Rs14,181,570 was approved as PSL Allowance for Mr Sethi and because a “payment…was made to Mr Sethi vide cheque dated Aug 10, 2018 for Rs6,064,516: once again, this is false and misleading.

“It is now admitted by you that no payment was ever received by Mr Sethi as PSL Allowance. Indeed, to the best of Mr Sethi’s knowledge, no cheque for any amount of PSL Allowance was ever even received by him and PCB has furthermore, even if it is assumed (without conceding) that a cheque for Rs6,064,516 was received by Mr Sethi, the fact remains that no cheque for the remaining amount of PSL Allowance (per our calculations, a pre-tax amount of Rs7,134,725) was ever made out by the PCB, let alone received by Mr Sethi.

“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 Mr Sethi,” the legal notice further stated.

Moreover, Sethi’s reply also claims that current PCB chairman is not living in any furnished apartment provided by PCB as of Sept 30, 2018. However, this is deliberately misleading. First, the deliberate emphasis on Sept 30, 2018 only highlights the fact that Mr Mani has ordered the Admin Department of PCB to rent access to a furnished apartment paid for by the PCB as per the chairman’s perks. Second, to the extent that Mr Mani was not using a furnished apartment, he was certainly using a five-star hotel room paid for by the PCB. Presumably all of this will be revealed if and when the PCB discloses Mr Mani’s expenses for the quarter ending on Dec 31, 2018.

Sethi also objected over the PCB treatment given to another chairman Shaharyar M. Khan for not issuing his perks and benefits of entire three years but only for one year, and 25 other individuals, too.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2018