Chief Justice makes surprise exit from GK case
In a surprise move that bewildered GK depositors, Chief Justice Mohan Peiris stepped down on Monday from the Supreme Court Bench hearing the Golden Key Credit Card Company Fundamental Rights case stating that he received several derogatory letters being circulated against him and under this set up it is unbecoming for him to continue hearing the case in the greater interest of the judiciary.
The development based on conflict of interests raised in the case of the Chief Justice (CJ), stumped legal analysts as these issues had been raised some years back too but that hadn’t deterred the CJ.
This move paves the way towards the re-constitution of the Supreme Court bench, for the second time in three years, in the GK case.
On the first occasion in 2011, when Justice Shirani Thilakawardena was hearing the GK case, CJ Shirani Bandaranayake personally took the case under her wing and reconstituted the bench on the basis of an affidavit submitted by a single person.
At a special hearing held on Monday, CJ Peiris told court that he has taken this decision to protect the dignity of the judiciary.“Independence was ingrained’ in him. I know those who are behind this,” he said in court. The decision comes at a time when the GK case being concluded with the Task Force setting a deadline of January 2015 to conclude the repayment of depositors.
The CJ said that there has been a petition claiming that he should not hear the case for reasons of an apparent conflict of interest. He asked from each counsel present if they have any objections to him presiding on this bench and they have unanimously said they have no such objections.
However, Counsel Ali Sabry PC and Faizser Musthapha PC said their clients who claim title to shares of CIESOT (Ceylinco Insurance Employees Share Owning Trust) have expressed concern about the CJ hearing the case.
Under this set up, the CJ told court that a new Bench will be constituted and presided over by Justice K. Sripavan and including Justice Rohini Marasinghe.
A number of GK depositors told the Business Times that they were bemused after hearing the decision of the CJ as the case was postponed to make a final order.
They noted that when the case was taken up for hearing on July 7 the CJ informed that no date will be fixed for the next hearing and he will make the order from his chambers.
The order was to include a decision on the CIESOT trust fund which was earlier alleged to be a mode of perpetuating control of Ceylinco Insurance Company by the Directors of the Company and former Chairman Lalith Kotelawala.
CIESOT is said to possess assets close to Rs.6.5 billion which the Task Force hoped to use in paying the depositors.
Although no date was fixed during the previous hearing, depositors became aware that the GK case will be taken up for hearing on Monday July 28 and rushed to court on Monday.
That is how most of the depositors came to know about it, Jude Marco Perera of the GK Depositors for Justice told the Business Times.
He claimed the Secretary of the GK Depositors Association created a scene at the court premises scolding the CEO of GK company for informing the date to GK depositors.
He noted that he came to Court on Monday thinking that this sudden decision to take up the case for hearing maybe because of his affidavit in a motion filed on July 15th urging the judiciary not to make final order on the GK case as there was an injustice caused to depositors due to wrong calculations in the payment plan of the Central Bank when determining the balance payable and deducting the rebate.
He noted that he has sent the affidavit by registered post to the CJ and other two justices to avoid the delay in handing over it to them.
But he said that he and other depositors never expected the action taken by the CJ to step down gracefully from the bench and it was a sorrowful incident for all GK depositors.
Malcolm de Silva of the GK depositors for Justice paid a tribute to the Chief Justice for his efforts to find redress for disgruntled depositors.
GK Company Chairman Priyantha Fernando has officially announced the completion of the 3rd phase of payments to the Security Deposit Holders. In a media release he said that the payments were made according to the Action Plan proposed by the Central BankCompany CEO Dinesh Perera noted that it would be possible to by-pass the Deposit Liability conversion into shares by expeditiously recovering funds from assets which have been identified and submitted to the Supreme Courts for direction, and to pay the depositors by cash. This is now defined as the phase 5 of the repayment plan, he added.
The next step of the repayment plan (Phase-4) which is scheduled to commence shortly would be made by way of direct transfers to customer bank accounts. The total payout under Phase 4 will be Rs. 2.4 billion, he said.