In "a major reprieve" to the Pakistan Cricket Board, a divisional bench of the Islamabad High Court restored Najam Sethi as its acting chairman and also "allowed the interim management committee appointed by the government to resume its functioning," according to the PTI. The decisions "were announced after the bench heard the appeals filed by the PCB and the government in the capital city" with lawyer Asma Jahangir "making a forceful argument before the judges in the court." An eyewitness said, "Asma Jahangir, who is representing the government in the case, gave a impassioned argument lasting some 90 minutes which appeared to convince the divisional bench that until a decision is taken on the appeals, Sethi and the interim management committee must be allowed to resume work" (PTI, 11/5). PAKISTAN TODAY reported the confusion over the status of Sethi and the interim management committee began on Oct. 28, "when Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui suspended Sethi at 9am for not complying with an earlier legal order issued by Justice Siddiqui to elect a permanent chairman for the PCB" by Oct.18. However, at 12:30pm on the same day, "the board's lawyers argued successfully to a different two-judge bench at the same court on the same case to maintain the status quo" -- that is, Sethi and the interim management committee -- at least temporarily. However, the written order of this judgment, released on Oct. 31, refers to no such conclusion, "leaving those board officials who received it, baffled." Both judges admitted to an "inadvertent" typing mistake and clarified that "the bench meant to ask the PCB to function until the appeal is decided." The PCB "had remained without a chairman and administrative body for six days" (PAKISTAN TODAY, 11/4).
