The term is an honorific that replaced the Queen's Counsel (QC), which Sri Lanka ceased appointing when it became a republic in 1972.
Appointments are made from lawyers who have practiced as counsel in original and appellate courts for many years either in the official or unofficial bar.
In 1903, Frederick Dornhorst, Ponnambalam Ramanathan and Thomas De Sampayo were sworn in as the first King's Counsels in the island of Ceylon, which was a British colony at the time.
This had been after the Bar Association introduced a set of guidelines for appointing PCs in April 2016, which was based on the constitution's Article 33(2)(e) which states that PCs should be "Attorneys-at-law who have reached eminence in the profession and have maintained high standards of conduct and professional rectitude".
[3][4] Subsequently, new guidelines were issued in 2021, to regulate the appointment of PCs, aiming towards a more uniform and fair system.