Shaharyar denies constitution rejected

Shaharyar Khan hopes that there will be progress on the PCB constitution in the near future © Getty Images

Shaharyar Khan, the PCB chairman, has denied reports circulating in Pakistan that the PCB's newly drafted constitution has been rejected and sent back by the President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf.

The draft copy has been with the President - who is also Patron-in-Chief of the cricket board - awaiting approval since June 2005 when it was sent for vetting. There it still remains, in limbo and not, as a local newspaper reported a few weeks ago, rejected and sent back.

Shaharyar told Cricinfo, at the National Stadium Karachi, that the draft had not been rejected and was still with the President. "We sent the draft on June 9 last year. After that we were told it had to be vetted by their legal authorities. In the meantime, three members of our ad-hoc committee, Ali Raza, Moeen Afzal and Naseem Shah, said the constitution is not taking into account properly the corporate culture. I told them to make a paper on it, which has also been sent to the President. They now want to scrutinise this as well."

The board has also come in for criticism from, among a plethora of others, members of the senate for being so guarded and secretive about the draft constitution and not allowing members of the public to see it before it is approved. But Shaharyar revealed that if it were up to him, he would have allowed the document to become public.

"My own feelings were that the draft which Justice Karamat Bhandari wrote should be made available to the public so they can offer suggestions. This is my own view, not that of the President or the Justice - they say it may become politicised - but I felt it would have been a good idea."

But it is still uncertain when the board, without a constitution since 1999 and being run on an ad-hoc basis, will finally have one. Shaharyar could only say, "I have a feeling there is movement there so maybe in the next few weeks or months they will say something on it."

The drafting and implementation of a constitution was one of the chairman's top priorities when he took over in December 2003; since then it has failed to see the light of day despite various deadlines being set. It will be of some concern to the board that, despite having a draft ready by the middle of last year, the status quo remains, although what they can do about it - Shaharyar said, "I can hardly push the President on it so much, as I am sure he has more pressing matters to deal with" - is unclear.