Dissident UNP parliamentarians go to court

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 February 2007, 16:00 GMT]
The Colombo District Court Monday issued two enjoining orders restraining Ranil Wickremasinghe and Mr. Tissa Attanayake, leader and general secretary of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) respectively, from taking disciplinary action against the eighteen UNP parliamentarians who have defected to the government side during the first week of February. The inquiry into these petitions was fixed for March 5 .

Of the eighteen dissident parliamentarians, eleven were members of the UNP Working Committee. The UNP working committee recently decided to expel the eleven MPs from the committee membership. The working committee further decided to expel all the eighteen parliamentarians from the party.

Two petitions on behalf of the dissident parliamentarians were filed in the Colombo District Court Monday.

One petition has sought a court order to prevent the leader and general secretary of the UNP from expelling eleven parliamentarians from the working committee of the party.

The second petition sought the court to prevent the leader and general secretary of the party from expelling the eighteen parliamentarians who have crossed over to the government side from the party.

The petitioners have cited Ranil Wickremasinghe and Tissa Attanayake as respondents.

Chronology: