Image: MP Vijayakala Maheswaran with PM Wickremasinghe.
Attorney General yesterday advised the Inspector General of Police to take legal action against former State Minister Jaffna District Parliamentarian Vijayakala Maheswaran over a controversial statement she made recently at a political rally.
IGP Pujitha Jayasundara has been instructed by the AG to file a case against Maheswaran under section 120 of the penal code, sources confirmed.
Maheswaran called for the return of the LTTE to bring back discipline to the north and east when speaking at a rally held in Jaffna in July this year.
According to advice given by the AG, she will be charged for “exciting or attempts to excite feelings of disaffection to the President or to the Government of the Republic, or contempt of the administration of justice, or excites or attempts to excite the people of Sri Lanka to procure, otherwise than by lawful means, the alteration of any matter by law established, or attempts to raise discontent or disaffection amongst the people of Sri Lanka, or to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of such people”. The offence entails a maximum jail term of two years.
The Government was pushed to resort to legal measures on the issue after opposition MPs, especially the Joint Opposition (JO) group, demanded action be taken against Maheswaran for calling for the return of a proscribed separatist terrorist group and acting in violation of the Constitution.
FT