Court agrees for amending SLC constitution

by Rex Clementine

The Appeal Court yesterday agreed for amendments to be made to Sri Lanka Cricket constitution paving the way for much needed checks and balances and an equal playing field for stakeholders of the sport.

Several leading stakeholders of cricket like S. Skandakumar, Muttiah Muralitharan, Rienzie Wijetilleke, late Vijaya Malalasekara, Sidath Wettimuny, Kusil Gunasekara and Dinal Phillips petitioned the court asking for fair governance for cricket with several cricket playing countries doing much needed reforms to their cricket structure in the last few years.

Accordingly, India now has 38 votes while Pakistan has 18 votes at their cricket AGMs. In England there are 28 votes while Australia has only six votes. In Sri Lanka, meanwhile, there are 147 votes at the cricket AGM. This means controlling clubs like SSC, NCC, Tamil Union, CCC and Colts have two votes each while some of the paper clubs also enjoy two votes. What the landmark judgment means is that Sri Lanka can now adopt a system that is in line with the rest of the world.

The case was filed two years ago and although the Sports Ministry had vehemently opposed for changes to be made to the constitution the arrival of new Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe saw that stance being completely changed.

Minister Ranasinghe informed the courts that he had no objections for changes being made to the constitution of SLC. There was further controversy as the Minister’s letter claiming no objections were not presented to the court by the Attorney General’s Department for two settings and finally the document was forwarded on Friday paving the way for the historic judgment.

The Sports Minister is the Chief Respondent in the case. He is certain to become the cynosure of all eyes in cricket circles as there had been several attempts made to make amendments to SLC constitution previously but there was little political will on those occasions.

Now the Minister of Sports will form an independent committee to bring the changes to SLC constitution. These changes will be made after consultation with the International Cricket Council.