A Bill to repeal the Chief of Defence Staff Act has been published through an extraordinary gazette notification, the first formal step toward abolishing the joint-command position created under the previous administration.
The Bill, prepared on the instructions of the Minister of Defence, was published in the Government Gazette on May 15. Titled the Chief of Defence Staff (Repeal) Act, 2026, it would scrap the Chief of Defence Staff Act No. 35 of 2009 “and provide for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto”, Newswire reported.
Under the draft, the office of the Chief of Defence Staff will cease from the date the Act comes into operation, and the person then holding the post will be attached to the respective armed forces service to which they belong. All movable and immovable property of the office will vest in the Ministry assigned the subject of defence.
The CDS post was created in 2009 under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government to provide a unified senior command tier above the Army, Navy and Air Force commanders. Repealing it removes the joint-command layer between the three services and the Defence Ministry, effectively returning to direct service-to-ministry reporting lines.
The Bill is the first NPP-era abolition of a Mahinda Rajapaksa-era defence structure and signals a broader restructuring of senior command. It comes alongside other recent service changes including Major General Manada Yahampath’s appointment as the 68th Army Chief of Staff. The draft must still be tabled and passed in Parliament before it takes effect.
