10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Dilip Wedaarachchi

Samagi Jana Balawegaya· Hambantota· 22 July 2025 ·Procedural: Questions of Privilege: Incidents at Airport and COPE Committee

Parliamentary Procedure
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Hon. Dilip Wedaarachchi raised a Question of Privilege regarding an incident on 6 July 2025, when Police stopped his vehicle at Fort around 11.00 p.m. after he had collected his son from Katunayake Airport. He stated that despite denying he had consumed alcohol, explaining the circumstances, showing his Parliamentary ID, and offering to recall his driver, the officers insisted he was under the influence while his ill wife was also in the vehicle.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, my Question of Privilege is this.

¶ 02 On 06.07.2025, my son, who studies in Australia, arrived at Katunayake Airport. My wife, our driver, and I went to pick him up. After dropping the driver at the Fort Bus Stand to travel to Tangalle, I was driving with my wife and son when Police officers at Fort stopped my vehicle around 11.00 p.m. They asked whether I had consumed alcohol. I said no; I had driven from Tangalle since morning and was returning after picking up my son. My wife, suffering from chikungunya fever, was in the back seat. I showed my Parliamentary ID and offered to call back my driver from Fort. They insisted I was under the influence.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Tuesday, 22 July 2025 ·No. 1753443916033328 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column
not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
Permalink
/lk/speeches/13695

Cite as: The Hon. Dilip Wedaarachchi. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 22 July 2025. No. 1753443916033328. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/13695