The Hon. M.S. Uthumalebbe
Hon. M.S. Uthumalebbe raised a privilege issue regarding remarks made by Minister Ramalingam Chandraseker during the Budget 2026 debate about the Archaeological Advisory Committee appointed by Gazette on 1 November 2025. He said he had correctly noted that the 19-member committee did not include Tamil or Muslim representatives and had requested at least one Muslim appointment, but the Minister’s subsequent comments implied he had not read the Gazette and used derogatory language. He argued that the remarks damaged his reputation as an elected MP for Ampara District and requested attention to the alleged breach of privilege, playing an audio recording of the Minister’s statement in the House.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
¶ 02 Hon. Deputy Speaker, all of you know that a 19-member Advisory Committee related to archaeology has been appointed. The relevant Gazette Notification was published on Saturday, 1st November 2025.
¶ 03 During the debate on the Budget 2026 on 15.11.2025, when I spoke on the topic relating to Tamils and Muslims in the Archaeological Advisory Committee, I pointed out that no representatives had been included and that 19 names had been published in the Gazette. I requested that at least one Muslim brother be included in the Committee. In response, the Hon. Deputy Minister Muneer Mulaffer informed that two Muslim representatives had been appointed. I thanked him for that. Subsequently, the Hon. Minister of Fisheries, Aquatic Resources and Ocean Resources, Hon. Ramalingam Chandraseker, without reading the Gazette properly, stated in this House that I had come here and spoken based on something written and read in the House — something supposedly written by the Leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress — and used very derogatory words, saying “do not show water to the Muslims,” thereby breaching my privilege.
¶ 04 Hon. Deputy Speaker, I am a Member of Parliament elected by the people of Ampara District. Would I have spoken here without reading the Gazette Notification? I do not come to speak at his level on such matters. Hon. Deputy Speaker, we, guided by our late Leader Ashraff, engage in the proceedings of this House in a civilized and dignified manner. We do not quarrel with anyone; we do not deceive anyone; we speak only of the problems of our people.
¶ 05 In this situation, for a responsible Minister to have spoken in such a manner in this House causes us pain and has breached my privilege. People might think I spoke in Parliament without reading that Gazette properly. I will now play in this House an audio recording of what the said Hon. Minister said. Hon. Deputy Speaker, please listen only to what the Hon. Minister said. You must listen to this.
¶ 06 (At this stage, an audio recording was played.)
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 25 November 2025 ·No. 22979 ·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/16595
Cite as: The Hon. M.S. Uthumalebbe. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 25 November 2025. No. 22979. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/16595