• Court extends injunction on Election Committee till 25 March  

The Ministry of Sports has officially sought a year’s extension of the deadline imposed on Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) by World Rugby (WR), Director General (DG) of Sports Shemal Fernando told The Sunday Morning Sports.

This is following the expiry of WR’s deadline last Friday (31 January) for SLR to amend its Constitution and press ahead with its election of office bearers.

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) which was originally scheduled to be held on 21 January has since been postponed indefinitely by the Sports Minister.  

“The Ministry Secretary, on behalf of the Sports Ministry, has officially written to World Rugby to extend the deadline by 12 months,” said Fernando, who is also the Competent Authority (CA) for SLR.

“The letter was sent at least 10 days before the deadline lapsed last Friday and we expect a favourable response within the first week of February.”

He said this had been done to amend the SLR Constitution and bring about the necessary changes sought by WR and its regional body Asia Rugby, along with the consent of the sport’s local stakeholders.

“Introducing these amendments will take some time and it will not be possible to do all this in haste. That is why we sought a year’s extension and we hope World Rugby will agree to it.”

Fernando added that the subject Minister had also been hamstrung in his efforts to expedite the AGM due to a restraining order imposed on the Election Committee by the court.

The Colombo District Court on Thursday (30 January), further extended the injunction imposed on the Election Committee – formed by the DG to oversee the AGM – until 25 March.

The restraining order has been imposed on the committee, following a petition filed by former President of SLR and national cap Lasitha Gunaratne.

The petitioner has informed the court that his nomination to contest the AGM had been dismissed by the Election Committee helmed by retired High Court Judge G.S. Edirisinghe without a valid reason.

Gunaratne via his lawyers has informed the court that his nomination to contest the AGM had been thrown out by the committee based on the failure to pay the annual membership fee of SLR.

The lawyers have argued that the SLR Constitution does not state the failure to pay its annual membership fees as an ineligibility to bar a member from submitting his nomination.

They have therefore requested the court to impose a restraining order against the holding of the SLR election without Gunaratne’s nomination. 

The other members of the Election Committee include retired High Court Judge Piyasena Ranasinghe, retired Cabinet Secretary Bandula Dissanayake, National Olympic Committee President Suresh Subramaniam, and Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry Development Director Dilum Dayaratne.