Mangala in SLT-Maxis case

By Natasha Gunaratne

Arguments will be heard tomorrow in the Supreme Court on the fundamental rights petition filed by Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi in 2007 against the proposed sale of 25.3 percent of Sri Lanka Telecom shares to Global Telecom Holdings (GTH), the parent company of Malaysia's Maxis Communications.

A petition has also been filed for former Minister Mangala Samaraweera to take over as petitioner after the death of Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi in a car crash earlier this month. A lawyer close to the case told The Sunday Times FT that the Court will make the decision regarding Samaraweera on Monday. Samaraweera was Minister of Posts and Telecommunications from 1994 to 2001, at the time when SLT was privatized in 1997.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), a Japanese company which currently holds 35.2 percent of SLT shares, was barred from taking any action regarding the proposed sale of shares to GTH by the Supreme Court which issued an interim order in June 2007 to that effect.

In the fundamental rights petition, Sooriyaarachchi alleged massive corruption concerning the proposed deal, the wrongful abuse of power and the misappropriation of public resources and maintained that the offer from Maxis Communications was unsolicited.