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

The Hon. Rauff Hakeem, Attorney-at-Law

Samagi Jana Balawegaya· Mahanuwara· 21 January 2025 ·Procedural: Question of Privilege: Hon. Sivagnanam Shritharan (Travel Ban)

Justice & Human RightsParliamentary Procedure
AI summary generated by gpt-5.5

Rauff Hakeem stated that he was present with Hon. Shritharan at the VIP terminal when officials claimed there was a travel ban, and he questioned the legal basis for it. He argued that any such restriction must be based on a court order and that action under the PTA does not justify arbitrary decisions by the TID. He requested a proper investigation and report, describing the incident as a breach of MPs’ rights and an injustice to Hon. Shritharan.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, since I was mentioned, I must explain. I was with Hon. Shritharan at the VIP terminal when this occurred. Officials claimed a travel ban. I discussed with them, pointing out that any such ban must be pursuant to a court order; mere operation under the PTA does not permit arbitrary actions by the TID. No court order was cited. This is not only a breach of MPs’ rights but a grave injustice to him. Though resolved then, I request a proper investigation and report.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Tuesday, 21 January 2025 ·No. 1737707091008005 ·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/27196

Cite as: The Hon. Rauff Hakeem, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 21 January 2025. No. 1737707091008005. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/27196