Former star cricketer Shoaib Akhtar received a defamation notice of Rs1 billion from sports journalist and former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official Nauman Niaz on Monday, reigniting yet another feud between the two personalities.<\/p>\n
The legal notice dated May 29, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, claimed that the ex-pacer made \u201cbaseless\u201d and \u201cunethical\u201d comments regarding Niaz.<\/p>\n
On May 25, Akhtar appeared on a show on a private news channel where he said that Niaz \u201cused to carry our bags\u201d and \u201che was kept for that purpose\u201d, the notice stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour [Akhtar\u2019s] comment\/remark was not only factually incorrect, it was an assault on memory and dignity,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The notice read that Akhtar\u2019s statement employed \u201cfoul and defamatory language\u201d against Niaz, with the \u201csole intention of destroying the reputation acquired by him [Niaz] through hard work\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat the false statements and the representations made by you [Akhtar] \u2026 have injured the reputation of our client [Niaz], lowered him in the estimation of others, reduced him to ridicule, unjust criticism, dislike and contempt \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is expected that our client will suffer severe financial and reputational loss and harm as a result of your actions,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
The notice asked Akhtar to issue an apology and retraction within 14 days, otherwise, he will face legal proceedings under Defamation Ordinance 2002 with damages amounting to Rs1bn.<\/p>\n
In a post on X, the former \u201cRawalpindi Express\u201d wrote that he received a \u201clegally defective, unfounded, ego-satisfying and utterly frivolous\u201d defamation notice from Niaz, saying that he has contacted a lawyer \u201cto draft and send a befitting reply in this regard\u201d.<\/p>\n
The pair have engaged in similar feuds in the past.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Niaz tendered an \u201cunconditional apology\u201d for his misconduct with Akhtar in a live TV show a week ago, prompting the resignation of the former star pacer from the channel.<\/p>\n
They were part of a panel for a PTV Sports programme, where Akhtar credited the Pakistan Super League\u2019s Lahore Qalandars franchise for discovering Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf.<\/p>\n
Niaz took issue with Akhtar\u2019s comments and said: \u201cYou are being a little rude so I don\u2019t want to say this but if you\u2019re being over-smart then you can go. I am saying this on air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the show resumed after a break, Akhtar apologised to the guests on the panel and announced his resignation from PTV, saying that he could not continue with the programme because of \u201chow I was treated on national television\u201d.<\/p>\n
Niaz later confessed to his \u201cmistake\u201d and said that the reaction to his outburst was justified. He added, \u201cI had no right. To err is human and for that, I apologise. Not only once, but a million times. Shoaib has been a rock star. Whatever happened on camera was unbecoming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former star cricketer Shoaib Akhtar received a defamation notice of Rs1 billion from sports journalist and former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official Nauman Niaz on Monday, reigniting yet another feud between the two personalities. The legal notice dated May 29, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, claimed that the ex-pacer made \u201cbaseless\u201d and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9700,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9698\/revisions\/9700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}