Jaffna High Court dismisses Devananda’s defamation case against Uthayan

Front page of Jaffna based Tamil daily Uthayan newspaper from archive: File pix

The Jaffna High Court on Friday dismissed a defamatory case filed by Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda against the local Tamil daily Uthayan for republishing a WikiLeaks article on its platform.

Minister Devananda filed the case in 2011 seeking Rs 1 billion as damages for republishing the WikiLeaks entry, which claimed that his party Eelam Peoples’ Democratic Party (EPDP) worked hand in hand with the Security Forces.

In the judgement, the court observed that over the past three decades, several articles about Mr. Devananda and his political party, EPDP, have been published in various Sri Lankan and foreign media, as pointed out by the defence team, and he had not initiated legal action against them.

The court noted during the cross-examination that the Minister also conceded that news with identical headlines and content had been published by many media outlets over the years.

The particular news item was originally published in WikiLeaks dated May 18, 2007 on the basis of a classified report given by then United States Ambassador Robert Blake.

The Court also noted that the government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report also included the contents of the WikiLeaks article.  Mr. Devananda also agreed and accepted it.

“It is respectfully submitted that the aforementioned republication of the article is done in the public interest of presenting the truth and justice and that the articles exposed several of them,” the Court said while noting the EPDP’s involvement with the Government of Sri Lanka during the time of the armed conflict and the assistance rendered by way of being a paramilitary group.

Jaffna District Judge K. Satheeswaran dismissed the case while holding that there was no animus injuriandi on the part of the defendant and the news was merely a republication of an already published article. Therefore, the judge said the newspaper did not make any comments to disrepute Mr. Devananda, as it was made in the public interest.

M.A. Sumanthiran PC, K.V.S. Ganesharajan, and M. Shabishanth appeared on behalf of the Managing Director and Editor of the newspaper.