The controversy over Presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Sri Lankan citizenship went a further legal step yesterday when a special leave to appeal application was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Court of Appeal’s order to dismiss the writ petition to restrain Presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa from holding out or claiming that he is a citizen of Sri Lanka.
This appeal petition against the CA order that dismissed their writ petition, has been filed by writer Gamini Viyangoda and Prof. Chandraguptha Thenuwara naming the Controller General of Immigration and Emigration R.M.P.S.B. Rathnayake, Commissioner General for the Registration of Persons Viyani Gunathilaka and several others as respondents.
Earlier, a Court of Appeal three-judge-bench unanimously decided to dismiss the writ petition by Viyangoda and Thenuvara on October 4.
That writ petition sought an Interim Order restraining Presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa from holding out or claiming that he is a citizen of Sri Lanka and from acting on the basis of the purported Dual Citizenship certificate.
In yesterday’s appeal to the SC, the petitioners have sought an order to set aside the Court of Appeal judgement dated October 4, 2019.
The petitioners further sought an order to stay the operation of the order made in the writ application by the Court of Appeal and they maintained that the order made by CA was bad in law.In its ruling, the Court of Appeal had decided not to issue notices on the respondents after dismissing the petition in limine.
The petitioners allege that the Dual Citizenship certificate in question was allegedly issued by the sixth Respondent, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, to his brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
They further allege that the purported Dual Citizenship certificate was not issued by the authority prescribed by law.
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