The Hon. Dharmapriya Dissanayake
Hon. Dharmapriya Dissanayake asked the Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs for details on lands governed by the Buddhist Temporalities (Amendment) Act, No. 34 of 2013, including their extent and the procedure for granting occupancy rights. He sought clarification on whether temple or dewalaya priests and trustees may rent, lease, sell, or otherwise transfer such lands, the legal basis or reasons if not permitted, and whether transferred ownership would revert to the relevant institution. He also requested whether the Government intends to adopt a common policy for these lands and, if so, the details of that policy.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Lands Coming Under Buddhist Temporalities Act: Details
¶ 02 Question No. 1505/2025 to the Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs:
¶ 03 (a) Will he inform this House— (i) the extent of land coming under the Buddhist Temporalities (Amendment) Act, No. 34 of 2013; (ii) the procedure for granting the right of occupancy in respect of those lands; (iii) whether the said lands can be transferred/sold to a third party on a rental, lease or freehold basis, at the discretion of the priests/trustees of the relevant temple/dewalaya; (iv) if so, the basis for that; (v) if not, the reasons for that; (vi) whether the ownership of the said lands that have been sold or transferred will be returned to the relevant temple/dewalaya; (vii) whether a common policy will be adopted in the future regarding the said lands; and (viii) if so, the policy referred to above? (b) If not, why?
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Saturday, 22 November 2025 ·No. 22972 ·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/22813
Cite as: The Hon. Dharmapriya Dissanayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 22 November 2025. No. 22972. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/22813