Supreme Court of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka: A Full Bench of Priyantha Jayawardena, PC, Murdu N.B. Fernando, PC, and S. Thurairaja, PC, JJ., allowed an application for special leave to appeal filed aggrieved by the order of the High Court.
The applicant-respondent-petitioner (workman) was employed as the Farm Manager of the respondent-appellant-respondent Company (employer). He had filed an application in the Labour Tribunal claiming compensation for the alleged unlawful termination of services and gratuity from the employer. The employer had stated that the termination was due to ‘frustration’ of the contract of employment as the farm in which the employer worked was closed down as it was not feasible to continue with its operations. After inquiry the Labour Tribunal had ordered compensation to the workman for the wrongful termination of employment. Being aggrieved, the employer had appealed the High Court where the appeal was allowed and order of the Labour Tribunal was set aside. Thus, the current appeal was filed by the workman. The Counsel for the employer, Viran Corea with Sarita de Fonseka had raised a Preliminary Objection stating that the workman had not complied with Rule 2 read with Rule 6 of the Supreme Court Rules of 1990 and moved for a dismissal of the application in limine. They further contended that workman had filed, by way of motion several documents without assigning any reason for the delay and/or inability to have tendered the said documents along with the petition. Per Contra, the counsel for the workman, Ms. Kaushali Rubasinghe with Mr. Kushani Harischandra, submitted that in terms of Rule 2 read with Rule 6 of the Supreme Court Rules, documents have to be annexed where the application contains allegations of fact which cannot be verified by reference to the judgment or Order in respect of which special leave to appeal is sought. It was submitted that no prejudice had been caused to the rights of the employer or the administration of justice due to the non-availability of those documents. Further, they contended that the application was taken up for support for the first time; no objection was raised on the maintainability of the application. However, the objection regarding non-compliance was raised only when the matter was taken up for support for the second time.
The Court while explaining Rule 2 read with Rule 6 specified that documents that are required to be annexed to an application for special leave to appeal, if allegations of facts referred to in such an application cannot be verified by reference to the judgment in respect of which special leave to appeal is sought. The Court further held that there was no provision requiring the filing of objections in an appeal. Hence, the statement of objections and the verifying affidavit filed by the workman before the High Court are not necessary to consider the instant application thus; said documents are not material documents to consider granting of special leave to appeal in the instant application. Preliminary Objection raised by the employer was overruled imposing costs.[Hiranya Surantha Wijesinghe v. Tenderlea Farms (P) Ltd., 2020 SCC OnLine SL SC 7, decided on 17-09-2020]
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