Court grants stay order to PCB against two ex-cricketers

A Lahore additional district judge, in two separate suits, granted the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) a stay order, restraining former Test cricketers Sarfraz Nawaz and Aamir Sohail from commenting on the PCB and its former chairman Najam Sethi.

Sohail and Sarfraz had been using derogatory remarks against PCB and its executive committee chairman Sethi for quite some time, the governing body said in a statement on Wednesday.

Legal notices were served to both the former cricketers telling them to stop using abusive and derogatory remarks against PCB and Sethi and apologise for their annotations.

But the notices did not prevent or deter the duo from flaying it and Sethi in both electronic and print media.

Sethi then filed two separate cases, "Suits for Recovery of Rs.100 million as Damages under the Defamation Ordinance 2002, Declaration and Permanent Injunction".

The PCB lawyers appeared before the court on behalf of the plaintiff, Sethi, and advanced arguments at length. None appeared on behalf of the defendants, Aamir and Sarfraz, before the court.

"After hearing arguments on a stay application, on behalf of the plaintiff, the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Sohail Shafiq, was pleased to pass Restraining Orders whereby the defendants have been restrained from levelling false, malicious and defamatory allegations against the plaintiff in the electronic and print media," Pakistan daily The Daily Times quoted a PCB spokesman as saying.