Former board members challenge right to dissolve board
The treasurer and secretary of the now dissolved Sri Lankan cricket board, Trevor Rajaratnam and Mohan de Silva, have called for the dismissal of the six-man Interim Committee, which was appointed by the Sports Minister, Laksmann Kiriella, after the
CricInfo
12-Apr-2001
The treasurer and secretary of the now dissolved Sri Lankan cricket board, Trevor Rajaratnam and Mohan de Silva, have called for the dismissal of the six-man Interim Committee, which was appointed by the Sports Minister, Laksmann Kiriella, after the dissolution of the board on the 28th March, according to a report published in the Daily Mirror today.
The former board members challenged the right of the Sports Minister to disband the elected cricket board and warned the Interim Committee that their future actions could be deemed unlawful, in a letter written by their lawyers and addressed to Vijaya Malasekera, the head of the Interim Committee.
The letter states that: "It is our clients and other office bearers of the BCCSL who are lawfully vested with the authority to wind up the affairs of the BCCSL. You and the other members of the purported Interim Committee have no authority whatsoever to act."
You are hereby put on notice that you will be held responsible for any conduct and actions on your part for acting in contravention or violation of the aforesaid statutory provisions and furthermore for the irreparable loss and damage and irremediable mischief caused to the member associations and clubs which constituted the BCCSL."
The dissolution of the cricket board is to be challenged in the High Court by the former Executive Committee on the 4th May. The Sports Minister is the first respondent. The second respondent is Prathap Ramanujam, the Sports Ministries Permanent Secretary, who has also been appointed onto the six-man Interim Committee.
Earlier in the week a petition to the District Court of Colombo, filed by Sumith Perera, president of the Baduraliya Cricket Club, that the board had given insufficient notice for the cricket board's AGM, was overturned, primarily because an Interim Committee had been appointed.
This led to a call by the disposed board that the AGM should now be held on the previously rescheduled date of 6th May. With the High Court case scheduled for the 4th May this is unlikely to happen.