A civil court in Lahore on Friday asked the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and singer Ali Zafar to submit their written responses to a petition seeking to stop the release of Zafar’s new song.
In his plea, Rizwan Nawab, a resident of Lahore, said that the release of what he termed was a new song for the ongoing Pakistan Super League “will damage the rating and popularity of PSL edition five”.
The petitioner also told the court that the official song Tayyar Ho had already been released for the fifth season of PSL and appealed to the court to “order the PCB and the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to restrain Ali Zafar from launching the new title song just for the sake of their personal grudge with singer Ali Azmat”.
The petition also asked the court to direct Pemra to “deny permission to air any new title song […] till the final date of the tournament”.
Civil court judge Kamran Karamat directed Zafar and the PCB to submit their responses to the petition by March 2, said the petitioner’s lawyer Rana Nauman Ashraf.
The PSL 2020 opening ceremony was held at the National Stadium in Karachi on February 20. Following the opening, a war of words ensued between Zafar and Ali Azmat — one of the singers on the original PSL 5 anthem.
The latter appeared on a TV show and said that his anthem, Tayyar Ho, was heavily criticised because “a rival artist employed a few bloggers, so that became very controversial”.
Later, in a video, Zafar criticised Azmat for blaming Azmat’s problems on someone else.
“If you’re having any problems in your lives — personal, social, financial — your business isn’t doing well, your event isn’t doing well, or even your music isn’t doing well — the reason for it has nothing to do with you. I am the only one responsible for it,” Zafar said in a manner that appeared to be sarcastic.
