Takeover Of Lakshman Kadirgamar’s Land: Court Issues Notice On Lands Minister
August 5, 2013
The writ petition against the Government take-over of former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s land in Jaffna which is set to become a symbolic and landmark case in the ongoing struggle for land in the north was taken up before the Court of Appeal today.
Lakshman Kadirgamar
The Court of Appeal issued notice on the Minister for Lands, Janaka Bandara Tennakoon, Land Acquiring Officer of the Jaffna District A. Sivaswamy and the Land Survey Officer of the Jaffna District who have been cited as respondents in the petition filed by the former Minister’s son last week.
According to the petition, Minister Kadirgamar became sole owner of the prime property on the Keerimalai-Kankesanthurai Road in May 1968. With the Minister’s assassination in 2005 by the LTTE, in accordance with Tesawalamai laws the property passed to his son, Sriraghavan Kadirgamar.
The Minister’s son is praying the court to prevent the respondents from taking any further steps on the acquisition until the application is heard. He also seeking a Writ Certiorari to quash the acquisition notice.
In his petition Minister Kadirgamar’s son says that he is being prevented from using and enjoying his rights to his ancestral property due to barricades and barbed wire fences manned by security forces personnel and unauthorised construction taking place in the vicinity. Evoking the ancient laws of the Jaffna District, the petition says that his ancestral land is tied to the petitioner’s identity and his family’s identity, a facet recognised in the law of Tesawalamai that applies to residents of Jaffna.
Analysts say the high profile victim of an ongoing land grab in the north by the state, will lend a hitherto absent dimension to the northern peoples’ land struggles. Read More
A Multiplicity Of Ministers
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha MP
Political Machinations: A multiplicity of Ministers
In getting ready material for the consultations I have been having with the young people concerned about constitutional reform, I finally counted up the number of Ministers we have. In fact the figure comes to less than 100, far fewer than the number of Ministers President Jayewardene had in his heyday, with far fewer Members of Parliament, on his side and taken as a whole.
His record included District Ministers too, so that 2/3 of Members of Parliament were Ministers in the eighties, and ¾ of the Government Parliamentary Group. Contrary to the hype of those critics of the current government who have forgotten completely the excesses of the past, things are better now.
But this still does not make them good. It is quite preposterous that Sri Lanka should have 65 Cabinet Ministers (along with 2 Project Ministers) plus 27 Deputy Ministers. In addition there are 4 Monitoring Ministers, as far as I know. This is fewer than I thought, but I realize now that the claim that Members of Parliament were asked to apply for these positions was not correct. I was under the impression, when I was told that I had failed to ask when applications were called, that National List MPs had not been included in the notice, but I find that others were left out too. Read More
