Four special petitions were filed in the Supreme Court yesterday (13) requesting that the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (Revised) Bill submitted for parliamentary approval be decided as unconstitutional. Jehan Hameed, Lt. Col. Anil Amarasekara, Member of Parliament Udaya Gammanpila, A. D. B. Abeysekara Gunaratne are the petitioners here.
The Attorney General is named as the respondent in the petitions. It is stated in the petitions that the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has submitted the revised Bill to amend the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Act and it has been included in the agenda of the Parliament on the 7th of March last.
The petitions have presented facts that the clauses of this bill are in violation of Articles 1, 2, 3, 4 of the Constitution.
t is stated in the petitions that the Central Bank of Sri Lanka is an independent institution and neither the Minister of Finance nor anyone else has the ability to intervene in them.
The main financial institution of a country should be an independent institution, and the petitions state that the independence of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka will be damaged due to the clauses included in this amended bill and the country may face further financial crisis. Also, the petitions have indicated that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be damaged due to this.
The petitions also pointed out that the Governor of the Central Bank should be an independent person and no one can interfere in his affairs. But it has been pointed out that the clauses included in this bill allow outsiders to influence the affairs.
These petitions have requested the Supreme Court to rule that the clauses included in this bill are unconstitutional and that it should be passed by the people in a referendum with a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament.