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Ex-bribery chief readies court challenge for long overdue payments
View(s):A former chairman of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABoC) is preparing to take the commission to the Supreme Court to recover unpaid salary arrears and to settle other anomalies.
“When the courts recommence after vacation by January 9, we will file papers on charges of contempt of court and not complying with court directives. They [the commission] can’t ask clarification from the courts after three months,” former chairman, retired justice Ameer Ismail told The Sunday Times.
On September 9 this year, the Supreme Court ruled over a fundamental rights petition filed by retired justice Ismail and two other commissioners after six and half years since its institution. The ruling directed the commission to pay their salaries within three months from the date of judgment.
By seeking a declaration that they are entitled to salary in arrears from January 2006 to January 2009, the petitioners secured a Supreme Court directive for payment of Rs 1.2 million for retired justice Ismail and Rs 1.3 million each for the other commissioners.
The petition was filed by former members of CIABoC: chairman, retired justice Ameer Ismail , retired justice Punyadasa Edussuriya, and former Inspector General of Police Indra De Silva, who passed away in December last year.
The Supreme Court has vindicated the contention of petitioners that the act of withholding payment of the arrears of salary for about five years after it became due violated the fundamental rights of the petitioners enshrined in Article 12(1) of the Constitution.
The petitioners named three former directors general of the commission, deputy director general E.D.Kumudu and former secretary to the president Lalith Weerathunga as first, second and third respondents.
The petitioners, who were appointed as commissioners under the provisions of section 2(b) of the Act No 19 of 1994, held office without blemish for five years from March 2005 to March 2010.
Their salaries were increased by a resolution approved by Parliament in terms of section 2(7) of the Act to be effective from January 1, 2006. It entitled them to be paid as arrears the sum which their salaries were increased for each month from that date.
A week before the three month term ended to pay the outstanding arrears, former chairman retired justice Ismail noted that in a letter to the director general that the commission has begun an investigation to ascertain the veracity of allegations that first and second respondents sought legal services unofficially by using state funds allocated for the commission.
However, Sarath Jayamanne PC, director general of the commission, told The Sunday Times that his predecessor has sent a response to this issue to the Supreme Court before he assumed duties in November. “My office will send an another fresh response to the Supreme Court in the next couple of days as we have decided to take up this matter with the court. Unfortunately we can’t disclose the content to the public,” he said.