Jeyaraj Fernandopulle MP was sent out for an airing clean out of the High Court precincts, only to return to those sepulchral surroundings in Hulftsdorp after one lawyer de-frocked himself - sorry de-cloaked himself -- and gave his own cloak to Fernandopulle. Why did the judges pull out Pulle? Listen to Fernandopulle say it, and your guess is as good as mine. But from all reports of what had happened Fernandopulle has been in High Court to witness the proceedings of an important case. But, he soon mingled with the Attorneys-at Law at the Bar table, being a lawyer himself with twenty four years on the roll. But, he was not wearing a cloak, and soon one of the judges on the three judge bench pointed this fact out to him, and asked him to leave the court premises. Fernandopulle returned however, when a lawyer who was in the vicinity gave the MP the benefit of his cloak for the day.

Fernandopulle is said to be very angry - angrier than when the President gave him a telling off for being too 'loud' and angrier than when he was chased down by an elephant at a procession in his hometown a couple of weeks back. He told a phone in interview that he is 'very disturbed'' that the 'opposition will use these facts against me' and said the judges 'did not do the correct thing'' because the legal rules in the tomes he had read allowed him to be in High Court without his cloak on, at the Bar table. Sounding like a schoolboy about to burst after a pep talk by a sadistic schoolmarm, he then blurted out "obviously the judges know the law -- then why did they do it?''

Perhaps Fernandopulle can think about it. If he took some time off to stop licking his wounds, he might even arrive at some possible conjectures.

For instance, the judges may have been charitable, because knowing that Fernandopulle was a parliamentarian, they did not want him to be mistaken for a suspect. Generally, Sri Lankan parliamentarians are seen in our High Court under guard and headed towards the dock, and there have been a whole procession of them that the Straits Times in Singapore recently carried an article titled 'Sri Lanka's parliament of crooks and criminals.'' So the judges may have wanted no mistake on that count, and therefore asked Fernandopulle to don the cloak, or stay out of court, so that he, being an MP present in High Court, will not be mistaken for a criminal or a hoodlum. So why does Fernandopulle have to go on high dudgeon when the judges have only been doing him a favour?

But he is bent on making it a cloak and dagger affair - and that's why he says in suitably hushed tones - "… being judges they knew the law, then why did they do it?" The Minister may have even cited sartorial reasons -- being in a spotless white national dress, donning a colonial hangover of a black cloak above it, he would have looked, well, like Ranil Wickremesinghe wearing a blue shirt for the annual UNP convention. But anyway, if Jeyaraj Fernandopulle reads half the books that he read over this matter for all important matters that happened to this country during his tenure as Minister, he would have been a learned man by now - not just a learned friend.

He would have been able to write a couple of newspaper articles and give a couple of phone in interviews dripping with acquired wisdom. " According to the tenets of ahimsa as laid down by Mahathma Gandhi the father of non violent agitation my supporters in Katana have been in breach of the fundamental tenets of peaceful electioneering - mea culpa mea maxima culpa.'' Or, he could have said "according to the proven laws of physics mass into velocity is equal to momentum -- which is why Anura Bandaranaike has the momentum to be the next Presidential candidate, no matter what any of us in the party including Mahinda do in the next few years.'' With such, erudition Fernandopulle would be able to pull anything over anyone in the future, including High Court judges.

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