Court fixes inquiry into FR filed on SLA travel pass

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 05:51 GMT]
A three-member bench of Supreme Court Tuesday fixed the inquiry into the Funamental Rights (FR) petition filed by former parliamentarian and the leader of All Ceylon Tamil Congress, Appathurai Vinayagamoorthy against the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) imposed travel restriction requiring persons travelling out of Jaffna, to 18 January 2010. The petition had been filed in April 2009.

The said SLA restriction requires all Tamils travelling from Jaffna to Colombo to obtain travel pass from their local SLA authorities a month before the date of travelling. The petitioner had pointed out that no one can travel to attend any urgent matter and the restriction was a violation of sections 12 and 14 of Sri Lanka Political Constitution.

The restriction further called for the disclosure of the reason of the travel to Colombo, the place where the applicant will be staying in Colombo, the duration of the stay and the phone number of the place all of which constitute violation of human rights, the petition said.

This SLA travel pass system was introduced from 2008.

The petitioner had also said that SLA Deputy Commander G. A. Chandrasiri, in response to a letter to him, had told that the restriction being issued by his superiors he cannot do anything.

The petitioner had further informed the court that he is filing the petition as his two letters to the Secretary of the Ministry of Defence were not answered.