5th Column

My Dear Athauda,

I thought I must write to you after hearing that you had said in Parliament that the Chief Justice should resign. I know a lot of people who want to get rid of the Chief Justice these days but you seem to be the first to say so openly!

At first, Athauda, I thought I shouldn’t take much notice of what you said. After all, no one really takes Senior Ministers seriously. Then I realised that I cannot dismiss what you said so lightly because you were in fact a former Minister of Justice and you made your statement in Parliament!

Of course, only cowards make such statements in Parliament because they know they cannot be sued for what they say and also because they know that those that they are accusing of wrongdoing-in this case, the Chief Justice-do not have the opportunity to reply to you in Parliament!

Now, if you were really courageous, you would have been like SB, bad mouthing the Supreme Court in public. Of course, he had to spend some time in prison for that, and I am not for a moment saying that what he did was right- but at least that man was not hiding behind parliamentary privileges!

My next thought was that you were trying to create a new precedent here, where persons who hold high office resign when they are accused of some wrongdoing, regardless of whether they are guilty or not, because it is the decent thing to do. That is why I am writing to congratulate you for this new idea.

But I must caution you, Athauda, in this day and age, that would be a dangerous trend. Why, Athauda, even in that giant Cabinet of which you are a member, if everyone who was accused of some wrongdoing or blunder were to resign, there would be hardly anyone left. Let me explain.

For instance, Susil would have had to resign when the hedging scandal was exposed and even if he was reappointed to his post, he would have to resign yet again when the scandal about cheap fuel imports came to light!

Then, Maithri would have had to resign for so many reasons: the repeated epidemics of dengue, the death of children after immunization and the many other scandals that have plagued the health sector and the same would have been true for Nimal too when he had that job.

Bandula and SB would have been long gone too, the former for the mess he made with A Level examinations and the Z score and the latter for antagonising the entire community of university academics!

Douglas would have had to resign because he has a murder charge dangling against him in India, Rishard would have to go for being accused of threatening a magistrate and if Mahindananda resigned whenever there was a scandal at Sri Lanka Cricket, we could have won a few test matches by now!

We need not even talk about Mervyn because he would have had to resign a million times and even Keheliya would have to resign because he once stormed into his son’s school and threatened its Principal-and that is even if we were to completely ignore what happened to him in Australia!

Wimal, of course would have had to resign on the day it was discovered that he was using American software in his computer after calling for a boycott of all things American and Dark John would have to resign after his secretary was linked to a murder investigation.

Professor GL would have to resign anyway because it was he who recommended the appointment of the Chief Justice and so would Doctor Rajitha because there was some controversy over the appointment of his wife to a top post.

Dew, Vasu and Tissa would have had to resign too instead of being silent spectators in the Cabinet because the parties they represent opposed the eighteenth amendment and that chap Chandrasena from the Anuradhapura district would have been long gone too because of the various charges against him.

And last but not the least, Athauda, there are two ministers in the Cabinet who have not only been accused of wrongdoing but formally charged in court too. The first is Arumugam who was found guilty of contempt of court. He would have had to resign instead of being pardoned by Mahnda maama!

And surprise, surprise, guess who the second is? It is none other than you, Athauda! Why, a few months ago you were charged with damaging public property and apparently you are still on bail! While I find it quite funny that a former Justice Minister is out on bail, shouldn’t you be resigning too, Athauda?

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha

PS-These days, many people are comparing Mahinda maama to JR. I see a difference, though. In JR’s time, there were those who had the courage to resign on a matter of principle-people like M.D.H. Jayawardena, Gamani Jayasuriya, Cyril Mathew and Neville Fernando. These days everybody is a puppet and even those who have their roots in the leftist movement like Dew, Vasu, Tissa and you are reduced to ‘yes’ men. Ah, NM, Colvin, Pieter and SA must be turning in their graves!

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