The Supreme Court judgment that all public servants must take note of

Three Opposition leaders, Champika Ranawaka, Rauff Hakeem, and M. A. Sumanthiran had moved the Supreme Court against Public Security Minister Tiran Alles, and the Ranil Wickremesinghe-led Government for allegedly ‘aiding and perpetrating a multibillion-dollar scam involving the IVS visa procedure’. It was introduced in April this year.

IMMIGRATION CHIEF ILLUKPITIYA: Remanded

TNA’s Attorney-at-Law Sumanthiran had argued in his petition ‘whilst the foreign currency returns to the Government of Sri Lanka would be negligible, the opportunity granted to 29th and 30th Respondents [GBS Technology Services & IVS Global – FZCO and VF Worldwide Holdings], to enrich themselves from this project is approximately $1.4 billion.’

When the case was heard in August, the Supreme Court issued an interim order suspending the e-visa process until the final determination of the petitions. When the court order was not complied, the three petitioners moved the Supreme Court for ‘Contempt of Court.’ This Thursday, the Supreme Court remanded the Controller General of Immigration for ‘Contempt of Court’ until January22 next year.

Even as police led the Controller of Immigration Ilukpitiya to his remand prison on Wednesday, Sumanthiran told reporters outside the Hulftsdorp courts, ‘Ilukpitiya had initially taken the position that the order in its entirety could not be implemented. Thereafter on the last occasion, the Controller of IT said it could be done within two months’ time. Today it was revealed through Informatics, that it can be done in 48 hours. Ilukpitiya himself was personally present in court and was charged with contempt of court. Initially, he told court he wanted two months’ time but changed his position yet again. In these circumstances, the court, while fixing the matter for inquiry into the charge of contempt, remanded him till January next year.’

Attorney Sumanthiran P.C added: There are enough judgements of the Supreme Court that says that court orders must be implicitly obeyed. It’s no defence to say, I’m waiting for advice from my lawyers. If a person is told to do something and he fails to do it, the law says he must be incarcerated until he purges himself of his contempt. It’s a warning to all public officers who blindly do the bidding of their political masters.’

It’s a cardinal rule of law that court orders transcend political orders issued from even the highest political authority in the country. It is a lesson that Ilukpitiya was to bitterly learn on Wednesday, and all public servants will be wise to well remember, no matter from what high political fountain the orders flow, if they do violate or act contrary to court orders, they’ll be left to carry the can alone and personally be liable for their actions and face penal punishment.

That is the exorbitant price all public servants will be called to pay for sucking up to their political masters.

Lanka’s last Dancing Queen takes final curtain call in life

Lanka’s last living legendary dancer, Vajira, made her final bow on life’s stage at the age of 92 years.

She passed away after living a life devoted to the Muse of Dance, at whose feet she worshipped, breathed, drank, ate, learnt, taught, loved, wed, wept, slept and finally died, breathing primordial fire eternally in her heart. She had carried the fire for sixty years and finally when the time arrived to pass the torch of fire, she passed the torch to her daughter Khema to seamlessly bear the eternal flame thenceforth.

And it all began in a Kalutara neighboughood. When her mother learnt that a dance master had opened a dancing class for village girls in the area, she was keen on sending her daughter Vajira to learn and develop the skills of dance. She herself had harboured a love for dance but the love never bloomed and was crushed in the bud when her father suddenly died prematurely. In her daughter, she hoped her own unsated passions could find a more aesthetic clime to thrive.

VAJIRA, QUEEN OF THE DANCERS: Vajira with her husband, dance maestro Chitrasena

And the dance master came with some impressive credentials.  He was the son of Seebert Dias who had produced the first Shakespeare play in Lanka. His home was a virtual cultural haven where the emerging arty crowd gathered. Seebert, having first encouraged his son to master Kandyan dance, dispatched him to Tagore’s famed Shantiniketan to breathe fire into his growing dancing passions and to refine his skills. When Vajira’s mother invited the young man to hold a special dancing class for young girls at her residence, his artistic reputation had preceded his arrival.

But 16-year-old Vajira was least amused. She scarcely took serious note of Chitrasena’s dancing class, darting in and out while the master was conducting his dancing class. But the mother did not give up. She managed to convince the principal of Kalutara Balika Vidyalaya, where she worked as a teacher, to introduce dancing as a compulsory subject. This left no choice for Vajira, who studied at the school but to attend the mandatory dancing class. Though she showed no great zest for it, she took part in many school concerts.

When Vajira and her sister came to Colombo to attend Methodist College, they both stayed at Chitrasena’s parents’ home. After she sat for her Junior Certificate Exam, she gave up her studies. Her passive, passing interest in art, found the right niche in dance to bloom.

She played the role of the golden deer when the accursed Maricha assumed that guise and aided Raavana to take Sita hostage, in Chitrasena’s ballet version of the Indian epic, Ramayana.  She had found her love in the Muse of Dance while the maestro had found his protégé in her. Their mutual discoveries, revealed simultaneously to them, created an instant rapport that drew them closer as guru and pupil.

But however platonic the relationship was at the start, it soon turned to passionate love, as inevitably as cotton wool next to fire, burns in rapturous flames. Their harmonious unison, entwined as one in dance and love, was sheer poetry in motion. In 1950 they wed, he 29, she just 18. But though separated by years, their hearts were united in love. The tempestuous Chitrasena found his match in Vajira’s wildfire.

Chitrasena formed his Chitrasena Dance Company in 1943. Vajira was not its silent partner but became its dynamic driving force. Together they built it to world acclaim. The rest, as they say, is history for which 400 students dancing today at the Academy will vouch. May Vajira peacefully rest by the banks of the Pierian Springs, serenely dancing with Chitrasena at the feet of the divine Muse of Dance, two soulmates rapt eternally in love.