CA dismisses former ambassador's petition
The Court of Appeal (CA) has dismissed a writ petition filed by a former ambassador asking the Court to issue an order compelling the Foreign Ministry to backdate the granting of his diplomatic rank of Ambassador and to pay him arrears of overseas allowances applicable to the said rank.
The petitioner, Y K A Rohanajith, was a member of the Foreign Service and had been posted to Tehran, Iran as minister at the Sri Lankan Embassy with effect from 01.12.2009 and been awarded the diplomatic rank of minister with effect from that date. While the petitioner was serving at the embassy, he was promoted to Grade I in the Foreign Service with effect from 17.05.2013. His promotion to Grade I was amended and backdated to take effect from 28.03.2012. He had later been given Head of Mission status and appointed as Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Islamic Republic of Iran with effect from 15.07.2015. He had been informed that his ambassador rank has been approved with effect from 01.03.2014 and he is entitled to draw the Overseas Service Allowance and other allowances applicable to the rank of Ambassador.
The petitioner’s grievance was that although he was promoted to Grade I in the Foreign Service with effect from 28.03.2012, he was given his allowances from 01.03.2014 because the letter issued to him stated that his ambassador rank has been approved with effect from the 2014 date.
The petitioner had appealed against this decision first to the Public Service Commission (PSC) which rejected his appeal, mainly on the ground that the allowances could be paid only from the date that he was appointed to the rank of ambassador. A subsequent appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) had also failed with the AAT siding with the PSC. He had then filed a writ with the CA.
CA Judge Vikum Kaluarachchi, with Judge Sampath Wijeratne agreeing, observed that the petitioner had failed to show either in his petition or even at the hearing of the application, any procedure or a clause in a Gazette notification to demonstrate that the petitioner becomes entitled to the overseas service allowance with his promotion to Grade I of the Foreign Service.
The PSC’s decision on the matter had noted that although the petitioner’s promotion to Grade I was backdated to 28.03.2012, the date of awarding the rank of ambassador was not backdated, and thus the petitioner is not entitled to the overseas allowances from the date that he was promoted to Grade I.
Although the petitioner’s complaint was that the date of his appointment as ambassador had been fixed arbitrarily, the Court said it cannot agree with that argument because the decision to award the rank of ambassador is made by the relevant authority, and that authority is not bound to inform the petitioner of the basis for fixing the effective date. Furthermore, the relevant authority is not legally or statutorily obligated to award the rank of ambassador from the date of promoting the officer to Grade I, the judges stressed, dismissing the writ petition.
Uditha Egalahewa, PC with Damitha Karunarathne appeared for the petitioner. Additional Solicitor General Sumathi Dharmawardene, ASG, PC with State Counsel A Jayakody, SC appeared for the Secretaries of the Foreign Ministry and the Public Service Commission.