The persons who are appointed as members of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) should read and know the PUCSL Act and the Electricity Board Act, PUCSL Chairman Janaka Rathnayaka said.

Two members of PUCSL, namely deputy chairman Udeni Wickramasinghe and Mohan Samaranayake, resigned from the commission last Friday (3). Later today, Douglas N. Nanayakkara was appointed a member of the PUCSL (6).

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) claimed that the PUCSL members resigned due to the arbitrary action of the PUCSL Chairman and his unprofessionalism.

Meanwhile, the chairman stated that commission members are typically appointed based on the president's and the parliament's Constituent Assembly's recommendations. The responsible minister should decide on the appointment and resignation of the commission members, the chairman said.

"However, there is no authority for the Power and Energy Minister to discuss this matter because this is not an institution under his ministry. Therefore, he should keep silent while looking after his own work. "Whoever the commission member who is appointed to the PUCSL has no relevance to the Power and Energy Minister," he said.

"Even though I don't care who is appointed as a commission member, I can work with anyone. The appointment of Douglas Nanayakkara was done according to procedure. "Whoever is appointed should read the PUCSL, CEB, and 2009 amendments if they need to work on the commission," the Chairman said.