LAHORE – Former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Najam Sethi on Monday sent a legal notice to incumbent chief Ehsan Mani for publishing incorrect details of his expenses incurred during his tenure.
The accusations are “incorrect, misleading, grossly exaggerated and deliberately calculated to hurt Mr Sethi’s reputation and to lower the esteem in which he is held by the general public,” said the notice, adding that the PCB’s move is “clearly intended solely to malign Mr Sethi, presumably at the behest of Mr Imran Khan”
On October 27, the cricket board published details of the expenses, stating that the former PCB chief and chairman of executive committee spent over Rs71 million during his term.
Calling the expenses details as “deliberately misleading and defamatory”, the legal notice said the PCB shared “incorrect figures, withholds information and deliberately avoids noting that all payments in question were authorised by the PCB’s Governing Board under the relevant rules”.
He denied receiving Rs14 million as PSL Allowance, adding that no amount was paid to Ehsan Mani as ‘Accommodation Allowance’.
“This is deliberately misleading. Mr Ehsan Mani is currently being provided a furnished apartment in lieu of his Accomodation Allowance,” read the notice.
It further added that an external audit of the PCB accounts was also conducted during the tenure of Sethi and no any objection was raised by the auditors.
The notice further claims that several amounts shared by the PCB pertain to the period 2014-2017, when the chairmanship was not held by Sethi.
Claiming that several things are missing in the PCB chart, the notice states that in 2017, “the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Sport recommended that Mr Sethi be given appropriate allowance for his successful staging of PSL. His PSL allowance was duly approved by PCB’s Board of Governors (BoGs) for the period 2015- 2018. Now withstanding the approval of the PSL Allowance, Mr Sethi has never been paid even one rupee as PSL allowance.”
“The chart is deliberately misleading and defamatory. It presents incorrect figures, withholds information and deliberately avoids noting that all payments in question were authorised by the PCB’S BoGs) under the relevant rules. The Chart is therefore defamatory.”
“There is no valid business reason for the release of such incorrect and misleading information. Instead, the publication of the chart is clearly intended solely to malign Mr Sethi, presumably at the behest of Mr Imran Khan. It is unfortunate beyond measure that you are complicit in the abuse of the PCB for mala fide purposes,” it adds.
The current PCB head and the cricket board have been called to take back the chart and apolgise over defamatory move, adding that defamation proceedings will be carried out against them on failing to do this.
