Warning To Government From Central Province UPFA Members

October 10, 2013 

A controversy over the chief ministerial slot for the Central Provincial Council spilled over to the council’s inaugural session today when at least seven Government councillors voted for the opposition candidate contesting the posts of chairman and deputy chairman of the council.

PM - DM

UPFA members nominated Councillor S.B. Ratnayake while the UNP nominated its councillor, Rohana Bandaranayake for the position of Deputy Chairman.

Ratnayake, the Government candidate won the contest with 33 votes, while Bandaranayake obtained 24 votes.

The total number of opposition members in the Central Provincial Council is 18. One opposition councillor was also absent at yesterday’s inaugural session making a total of 17 seats.

Bandaranayake’s vote tally proved that seven Government members had voted in favour of the opposition candidate.

The vote for the chairman of the council was even closer with the Government candidate obtaining 29 votes while the opposition candidate obtained 27 votes, proving that 10 Government councillors had voted for the opposition candidate.

The Central Provincial Council was mired in controversy after President Mahinda Rajapaksa overtook the province’s highest vote taker Anuradha Jayaratne for the post of Chief Minister and appointed Sarath Ekanayake who got only half of the number of Jayaratne’s votes. Anuradha Jayaratne is the son of Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne, a SLFP strongman in the Central Province. The President’s decision, based on the fact that the son of a prime minister could not be made chief minister of a province. The decision was despite several announcements before the provincial elections that chief ministers would be chosen based on the preferential vote tallies. Angry supporters of Jayaratne held a protest in Kandy against the President’s move. In a remarkable turn of events, the Prime Minister also participated in the protest.

The remarkable voting patterns at yesterday’s inaugural session is believed to be a continuation of the crisis in the Central Provincial Council with many of the councillors still displeased that Jayaratne was not given his due.

Ramifications Of 13A Governing State Land

By Sarath N. Silva -October 9, 2013 

Sarath N. Silva - Former Chief Justice

The recent decision of the Supreme Court, coming in the wake of the first ever election to the Northern Provincial Council, has aroused much concern and mixed reaction that it is in the public interest to make with due respect to the court, a realistic analysis of its content.

The appeal to the Supreme Court stems from an application filed by Solamuthu Rasu, a workman in a tea estate, before the Provincial High Court of the Central Province, seeking a writ of Certiorari to quash a notice to quit issued on him purportedly under the State Lands (Recovery of Possession) Act. The land from which he is to be evicted is described in the notice as a portion to Stafford Division of the Ragala Estate.

Rasu claims that he was an employee of the Estate, which vested in the Land Reform Commission in 1975 and that he was allocated the plot of land in question in about 1980 under a scheme of providing workmen with a means of income. He cleared the land which was undeveloped and has been cultivating it since then. On March 12, 1982 the Minister vested the Ragala Estate in the J. E. D. B. which was established under the State Agricultural Corporation Act. The new management sought to eject him from the land and a proceeding was instituted in the Primary/Magistrates Court of Nuwara Eliya under section 66 of the Primary Court Procedure Act. The court made order in favour of Rasu and directed that he could remain in possession until evicted upon an order of a Civil Court. No such case was filed against him.

In 1992, there was another change of management and the business of the Ragala Estate was taken over by a Public Company viz Mathurata Plantation Ltd in terms of an order under Act No 23 of 1987. Subsequently this company was privatised. Several years later the 2nd Appellant before the Supreme Court described as a “Consultant/Plantation Expert” acting apparently on a resolution of the JEDB purported to issue a notice to quit on Rasu, the validity of which he challenged in the application to the High Court. It appears that although the functions and the business of the JEDB had been taken over by the Plantation Company on the order referred above, there remains an insidious and highly questionable practice of recovering possession of land claimed by the company through the summary procedure in the State Lands (Recovery of Possession) Act in the Magistrate Court without going through a regular civil action in the District Court.Read More