Sumanthiran's petition to intervene in Supreme Court or to protect Ranil Wickremesinghe? - Suresh Premachandran

Colombo (News 1st) - Tamil National Alliance MP M.A. Sumanthiran filed a petition before the Supreme Court today (August 21). Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran filed an intermediary petition with the Supreme Court after Presidential Maithripala Sirisena sought the determination of the Supreme Court on whether the Provincial Council polls can be held in the absence of a delimitation report. The MP seeks a court ruling noting the President has no legal right to call for elections under the previous system without the report on delimitation. The application filed by the President to the Supreme Court is due to be taken up before a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya at 10 a.m on Friday, August 23rd. Leader of Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front, Suresh Premachandran expressed his views. He stated that they have received information regarding M. A. Sumanthiran submitting a private members bill to the Speaker about the Provincial elections. "This is against the backdrop of the Northern Provincial Council being dissolved for months, without seeing Sumanthiran present a private member's bill or even a draft bill with regard to it", he continued. He highlighted that Sumanthiran is to appear before the Supreme Court on August 23rd. He added that according to his knowledge, if a private members bill is presented to Parliament, and it is passed, the election could be held and noted that Sumanthiran is well aware of it too.  He emphasized that it takes 6 months to a year to have a private members bill debated in Parliament raising a question regarding the purpose of this bill. He noted that Sumanthiran's idea could be to get in the way of the Supreme Court forcing Parliament making it clear that the indicated bill is being presented to postpone the election or to protect the Ranil Wickremesinghe government from the elections they are about to face.