Former Minister A.H.M. Fowzie has published a public apology in a newspaper in compliance with a Supreme Court ruling concerning the misuse of a government vehicle for personal purposes.
The apology relates to the misuse for personal use of a government-owned Toyota Land Cruiser bearing registration number WP KI-4666, which had been assigned to the Disaster Management Centre.
In the notice, Fowzie sincerely apologised to the people of Sri Lanka for misusing the vehicle for personal purposes, stating that the apology was made in due compliance with the Supreme Court judgment.
In its ruling delivered on 29 September, the Supreme Court ordered Fowzie to pay nearly Rs. 6.6 million to the Consolidated Fund and to publish public apologies in Sinhala, Tamil and English newspapers.
The Supreme Court ruled that using a vehicle donated by the Government of the Netherlands for disaster management activities in Sri Lanka for personal benefit had violated the fundamental right to equality guaranteed under Article 12(1) of the Constitution.
The judgment was delivered by a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena and Justices Janak de Silva and Arjuna Obeyesekere.
The ruling followed consideration of a fundamental rights petition filed by former Ceylon Chamber of Commerce chairman Chandra Jayaratne.
The court had also ordered Fowzie to publish half-page apology advertisements, accompanied by a photograph of the vehicle, in the state-owned newspapers Silumina , Sunday Observer and Thinakaran .
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