Govt. Grabs Lakshman Kadir’s Land In Jaffna

August 1, 2013 

The son of assassinated Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has filed legal action against Government moves to acquire his ancestral property in Maviddapuram in the Jaffna peninsula.

Lakshman Kadirgamar

Sriraghavan Kadirgamar filed a writ application in the Court of Appeal today, seeking a Writ Certiorari to prevent Lands Minister Janaka Bandara Tennakoon from acquiring the property though his attorney, Lilanthi De Silva.

The former Minister who inherited the land from his mother, was a strong critic of the LTTE and considered Sri Lanka’s best foreign minister of all time. Minister Kadirgamar’s brothers have also extended yeoman service to Sri Lanka, as military officers of rank and eminent lawyers.

His son’s petition against the Government’s acquisition of his personal property puts the eminently respected Minister’s family front and centre of an ongoing struggle for land rights in the formerly embattled Jaffna peninsula.

The case will join several other petitions filed by some 2000 land owners in the Northern Province alleging an acquisition of their traditional lands by the Government. The struggle for land is an emotive one in the north because it is perceived as being a root cause of the ethnic issue since the 1950s.

The former Minister’s property now owned by his son was exclusively allotted to him by a Jaffna District Court decree in May 1968, the petition says.

Sri Raghavan Kadirgamar is seeking interim relief from the courts, to prevent the respondents and their agents from taking any steps to act upon the acquisition notice until after the case is heard.  The Minister’s son is also seeking a mandate in the nature of a  writ of Certiorari quashing the purported acquisition notice published under Section 2 of the Land Acquisitio Act. In his petition it is argued that the acquisition is arbitrary and unreasonable and serves no public purpose.                               Read More