CAA Chief found guilty of Contempt of Court

Wasantha Ramanayake

COLOMBO: The Supreme Court yesterday found the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) Chairman Sarath Wijesinghe guilty of Contempt of Court yesterday for the failure to adopt the CAA's own long term pricing formulae to prevent ad-hoc price increases of the domestic LP gas cylinders that had been formulated on the directions of the Court.

The Court put off the sentence for two weeks and ordered the respondent chairman to resign from the post of Chairman of the Consumer Affairs Authority.

The court observed that the respondent chairman on his own admission was not fit to perform his duties. The Court further ordered to forward both the resignation letter and the court order to the President and the Minister concerned.

The court further observed that the only explanation he had given with regard to the non-implementation of the formulae was that he was under pressure to do so. The Chairman collapsed inside court while the court was delivering the order.

Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva PC noted that the respondent chairman had misled the Cabinet of the Supreme Court sanctioned Term Pricing Formulae framed by the CAA with regard to LPG domestic cylinders.

The Chief Justice also noted that the respondent chairman had blatantly violated court orders in the rights application filed by Dialog Television. Senior State Counsel Rajeeva Gunatilake moved to revoke his proxy for the respondent chairman on the basis that the chairman had disregarded his advice on the matters.

The SSC pleaded clemency on behalf of the respondent and also moved to withdraw criminal Proceedings against the Dialog TV instituted in the Magistrate Court by CAA, while the matter was pending before the Supreme Court.

The court had earlier directed the CAA to device such formulae as a result of the rights plea filed by the Laugfs Lanka Pvt. Ltd. against the determination of the CAA relevant to the increase of LP gas prices. The petitioner had stated that the CAA had only sanctioned a mere Rs. 20 increase while allowing the Shell company to increase the price of a domestic cylinder by Rs. 37.

Later, the petitioner filed a motion in court complaining that the CAA had refused to implement the pricing formulae and allow the price increase in par with the price hike in the world market. But he had allowed Shell to increase their prices by Rs. 213, misleading the Cabinet on the pricing formulae and putting the petitioner's business in jeopardy.

The court was highly critical of the illegal actions of the respondent noting that he had unduly favoured Shell and deliberately attempted to push the petitioner company out of the market. The Bench comprised Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva PC and Justice Shirani Thilakawardane and Justice Saleem Marsoof PC.

Romesh de Silva PC with Harsha Amarasekera and Sugath Caldera appeared for the petitioner.