POSTED BY: Eurobasket Center
Zulfiqar Ghuman of "Daily Times of Pakistan" reports:
The Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) and the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB), despite direction of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, have failed to hold elections of the Pakistan Amateur Basketball Federation (PABF). The PABF is being run by an ad hoc committee since June 28, 2000 with Sarfraz Iqbal as its president and Naseem Butt as secretary.
The sports circles in the country had hoped that the things would start moving in the right direction especially after Lt Gen Syed Arif Hasan became POA president. Arif proved his credentials with successful holding of the 9th South Asian Federation (SAF) Games in Islamabad.
The PABF’s election issue needs immediate attention of the sports managers to set the things right and send a message that they (POA) mean business not politics.
The ad hocism was imposed after two years of infighting when the PABF split into two groups on the occasion of the PABF elections on January 15, 2000. One group was led by Brig (retired) Rashid Ali Malik and the other by Air Commodore (retired) Muhammad Afzal Khan.
The POA then had to intervene after both the groups failed to resolve their differences. The POA referred the case to its affiliation and constitution committee which asked the PSB to hold the fresh elections. The PSB convened the election meeting on May 8, 2000 but failed to hold the elections because of a dispute between Multan and Peshawar associations. After settling their differences, the elections were held on June 22, 2000. The elections were tied and the PSB appointed ad hoc committee on June 28, 2000. Air Commodore Afzal moved the LHC against the imposition of ad hoc committee but the court decided in the favour of PSB. Former secretary of the association Khalid Bashir moved the LHC after death of Afzal but the court did not entertain his appeal. Khalid continued his struggle and finally the Supreme Court directed the POA to hold the elections through the PSB by April 4, 2002.
The POA convened the meeting of the affiliation and constitution committee on April 5, 2002 and constituted the election commission for holding the elections. But the commission has so far failed to hold the elections. The failure of the POA in holding the elections led some other people to move the court against the non-implementation of the Supreme Court’s injunction.
