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by Indeewara Thilakarathne

Colombo Additional District Judge L.S. Abegunaratne yesterday suspended the enjoining order issued earlier, that restrained Ports, Shipping and Eastern Province Development and Muslim Religious Affairs minister Rauff Hakeem from functioning as the leader of the SLMC.

The earlier Court order restrained Hakeem from functioning as SLMC leader till December 13, 2002. Yesterday's Court order was made sequel to a motion filed by S.A. Parthalingam PC, Counsel for Minister Hakeem.

The Defence Counsel requested the Court to suspend the enjoining order earlier issued. At this stage Counsel for defendant Wijedasa Rajapaksha PC raised an objection that the order could not be suspended without issuing notices to the defence which is named in this application as respondents.

"I raised this preliminary objection because the ex-parte enjoining order was issued by Your honours Court. Now that the respondents in that petition have come and requests the Court to suspend that order. We have not been informed of this application and they are now trying to state that we have misrepresented and suppressed the important facts. They submitted several documents to that effect," said the defence Counsel.

S. Parthalingam stated that the Counsel for petitioner had cited a Supreme Court case irrelevant to this case and that the Court has inherent jurisdiction to suspend the order earlier issued.

He said, therefore he was within the legal provisions to make this application and the Court has jurisdiction to suspend it.

However, the Court later ruled out the objection taken up by the defence in terms of Section 664 (3) of the Civil Procedure Court. In his order, the Additional District Judge L.S. Abegunaratne stated that when the earlier order was made it was stated that the High Command had expelled the plaintiff and that 2,3 respondents informed the expulsion by fax on December 1, 2002. The Defendent had suppressed this fact to the Court. It was further proved by the notices published in the newspapers. Therefore the Court suspended the enjoining order.

S.A. Parthalingam PC, Upul Jayasinghe, Ronald Perera and Fiazer Musthapa instructed by Samararathne Associates appeared for the plaintiff while Kuwera de Soyza, Kapila Liyana Gamage, Sri Pathy Suriarachchi, Chandra Siri de Silva, Wijedasa Rajapaksha appeared for the defence.

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