Quo Warranto against Ranil dismissed

Court upholds preliminary objections

By S.S. Selvanayagam  

Court of Appeal yesterday upheld the preliminary objections raised on the maintainability of the Writ of Quo Warranto filed against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and dismissed the petition.  

The matter was taken up for inquiry by Justice Shiran Gooneratne.  

UPFA Colombo Municipal Councillor Sharmila Gonawela, who is a co-president of the ‘Women for Justice filed the Writ of Quo Warranto petition against Ranil Wickremesinghe challenging his parliamentary membership.  

Uditha Egalahewa PC with N.K. Ashokbharan appeared for the petitioner and responded to the preliminary objections.  

The petitioner cited Ranil Wickremesinghe, Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, Parliament General Secretary Dammika Dasanayake and two others as respondents.  

K. Kanag Iswaran PC appearing for Mr. Wickremesinghe in his preliminary objections said it was mandatory that the petition should be filed in compliance with the Court Rule and that the documents annexed to the petition were not duly certified and as such the application could not be supported.  

He said the documents filed were photocopies and blank papers and the law prohibits such documents and added that it was mandatory to file certified documents and the petition had to be supported by original or certified documents where the rule regulates the mode of enforcing the law.  

Mr. Iswaran PC said one cannot proceed to the next step by failing to comply with the rule and asked Court whether the documents filed by the petitioner could be relied upon.  
He said the documents should have been certified by the custodian who is legal keeper of such documents but had not been done so and as such was a total violation of court rule.
Suren Fernando appearing for Akila Viraj Kariyawasam in his preliminary objections said the petitioner should have filed the documents when filing the petition but she had not done so.  
He said there were no necessary parties cited as respondents and as such the application was fatal.  

The counsel sought Court to award futile costs to the respondents as the respondents retained private counsel.  

He said the documents do not even have a signature and the photocopies of the documents were not signed by the custodian and as such the petition was not proper and must be dismissed.  

The documents filed were photocopies and blank papers and the law prohibits such documents

Senior Deputy Solicitor General Vikum de Abrew also raised preliminary objections on the maintainability of the petition and said the petitioner had suppressed material facts.  K. Kanag Iswaran PC with Niranjan Arulpragasam instructed by G.G.Arulpragasam appeared for Mr. Wickremesinghe while Suren Fernando appeared for Mr. Kariyawasam.