According to the law, any private land has to be acquired; if it is a state land, it has to be recovered under the Recovery Act. However, if the UDA considers that the land in Wanathamulla comes under its purview, it has to apply to the Magistrate's Court requesting that the said land be handed over, and act according to the decision of the Court. "Unfortunately, what we see is the UDA officers just walking into homes and threatening people, and asking them to leave. As a statutory body they have to be more responsible," he said.
Jayasuriya went on to say that the BASL will file a public litigation case at the Supreme Court to stop the eviction process at Wanathamulla, and added that the BASL will not stand by and watch while innocent people who have spent millions of rupees building their homes, being evicted overnight and relocated in tiny apartments. "They need to be paid compensation under the Land Acquisition Act," he further said.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that on 30 January, the UDA had gone to Wanathamulla and had rounded up men and women from the area, and had put them into four buses, and had transported them to the Convention Centre in Colombo. Attorney-at-Law, Sunil Wattegala, alleged that the residents had been threatened and intimated into agreeing to vacate the area.
The UDA has argued that they want the people to move out because those areas get flooded during the rainy season, and also to protect the residents from contracting the disease, dengue, that is threatening to break into an epidemic.
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) charged that the Urban Development Authority (UDA) is acting in an illegal and arbitrary manner by evicting the residents of Wanathamulla, and challenged its Board of Directors to come forward for a public debate on the legality of their actions and acquisition. Speaking to Ceylon Today, the President of the BASL, Upul Jayasuriya, said yesterday that most of the residents possess valid deeds going as far back as 20 years or more, and that the UDA is acting beyond its jurisdiction.