Court grants leave to FR petition by Jaseeharan, Valarmathi

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 August 2008, 20:49 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Supreme Court granted leave to proceed with the Fundamental Rights violation petition filed by Mr. Jaseeharan and Ms Valarmathi, co-directors of the "Outreach" website, being held in remand since the arrest on March 6 this year along with Sunday Times columnist J.S.Tissanayagam, legal sources in Colombo said.

The FR violation petition filed by Jaseeharan and Valarmathi came up for inquiry before a three-member bench of the Supreme Court chaired by Justice Shiranee Bandaranaike on August 19.

Other members were Justices Salem Marsuk and K.Sribavan.

The Court further fixed the inquiry for granting interim relief to the petitioners on August 27, legal sources said.

The petitioners cited Defense Secretary, Gothabaya Rajapakse, former Inspector General of Police, Victor Perera, the Attorney General, and three police officers related to their arrest, legal sources said.

The petitioners have begged in their suit that their fundamental rights have been violated due to their arrest by police officers-respondents without valid reasons.

Both were taken into custody on March 6 from their office. Journalist Tissanayagam, who has also been a director of the website run with the funding of a German organization, was also arrested by the police when he came to the police station to see the arrested employees of his organization.

The court directed the respondents to file their objections within six weeks, and petitioners to file their counter-objections within three weeks from the date of submission of objection by the respondents.

The proper inquiry into the FR petition was fixed for November 14.

Counsel J.M.Weliamuna with Counsel Ms Gowrishankary Thavarasa appeared for the petitioners.

State Counsel A.Hamza appeared for the state, legal sources said.