Referring to their submitted objections to the Appeal Committee of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and country’s Sports Law, opposition camp has claimed that Shammi Silva and his colleagues will not be able to contest the board election ever again.
‘The Big Three’ as they call themselves – K. Mathivanan, Nishantha Ranatunga and Bandula Warnapura – have filed objections against virtually every nominee put forward by the Shammi Silva led administration running Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) for the forthcoming elections.
“Shammi Silva led administration had failed in getting approval from the ExCo and submitting their accounts to the AG by 20 February 2021. We have got evidence that they have got approval only in March, which is a violation of the constitution and therefore they cannot apply for any position at the forthcoming elections” an insider at Mathivanan camp told Cricket Age.
Mathivanan camp submitted the said objection with evidence to the SLC election committee long time ago. As the election committee has cleared and closed the objections, now they have approached for the same to Appeal committee.
“We expected them to give us a positive response to our objections in terms of all the accusations we have made against the current office-bearers, and for all the violations they have made for which we have got documentary evidence. However, we are very disappointed with the response of the Elections Committee. So now, we have again submitted our objections to appeal committee”the insider added.
Cricket Age has the access of Sri Lanka Sports Law regulations, which reads:
“He being a person, who is holding the post of president, secretary, treasurer of the other checque signing officer of a national association of Sports, which has not submitted the audited financial statements certified by the Executive Committee within the 2 months after the end of each financial year, such person are not permitted to submit nomination for the posts in the forthcoming year of election until the inquiry is conducted and the offender is determined.”
Referring the said Sports law regulations, Mathivanan camp claims that Shammi Silva (President), Jayantha Dharmadasa (Vice president, International Cricket), Ravin Wickramaratne (Vice president, Lanka Premier League), Mohan De Silva (Secretary) and Lasantha Wickramasinghe (Treasurer) Will not be able to contest in forthcoming elections.
“Even in the last two elections held in 2017 and 2019 the same thing happened. In 2019, we had to go to the Appeal Court and we had to go to Courts to get the real outcome of our objections.
Even with regard to 2017, we had to follow the same process. We had to go to court and we managed to keep some of the people who are not supposed to be eligible to contest, out,” Ranatunga, the most visionary administrator in Sri Lanka cricket history, said in a press conference on March 18.
“We have filed objections against all of them. We are very confident that with the existing documentation and proofs that we have, apart from one candidate from their side (Samantha Dodanwella), all the others are not entitled to qualify to run for office at the forthcoming elections,” Nishantha had added.
