Dispute on unregulated development in Wilpattu under guise of feast settled before Appeal Court

By S.S. Selvanayagam

The dispute complaining of unregulated development in Wilpattu under the guise of an annual religious feast was amicably settled for the time-being before the Court of Appeal.

The settlement was decided on 5 July before a Bench comprising Justices Yasantha Kodagoda (President/CA) and Arjuna Obeysekere.

Public interest litigant voluntary bodies Environmental Foundation and Wildlife & Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka in their Writ Petition lament the alleged clearing and disturbance caused to Wilpattu National Park (WNP) and unregulated development activities as well as human intrusion for the festivities of a small jungle Catholic shrine in the Pallakandal/Pomparippu area of the WNP.

K. Kanag Iswaran, PC with W. Karuna Rathna and C. Liyanage appeared for the petitioners.

ASG Sumathi Dharmawardena appeared for the Director General of Wildlife Conservation. Rienzie Arsecularatne, PC appeared for the Bishop of Chilaw. Shammil J. Perera PC, Romesh De Silva PC and Sanjeeva Jayawardena PC appeared for other Respondents.

As a means of settling the underlying dispute for the moment which would result in the petitioners moving to withdraw their petition, parties in dispute agreed to the following terms of settlement.

The religious dignitaries in charge of an associated with the Pallakandal Church shall have the entitlement as they have exercised before for the conduct of all relevant religious activities within the premises demarcated and recognised by the Court as the outer perimeter of the Pallakandal Church.

The religious activities which includes the annual feast or due to otherwise attend the church during the period has unimpeached access to the church either from Eluwankulam or from Mullikulam (north as well as south, travelling on the direct Mannar-Puttalam).

Such access would include deviating from the said road at a junction referred to as ‘Suruwama Hndiya’. These devotees shall have the entitlement to travel either by public transport or private. However they shall not be entitled to travel by foot.

When such transport enters the road either from Mullikulam or the Eluwankulam or any other group travelling by foot enters the said road, law enforcement personal and in particular officers of the Department of the Wildlife and the Police shall be entitled to accompany such devotees and such entitlement includes entering and travelling with them in any public or private transport.

These devotees shall not be entitled to deviate from the said road after once they enter the reserved forest area. Once they enter the outer perimeter of the Pallakandal Church, they shall have the entitlement to stay and roam within the demarcated area as they wish.

The law enforcement personnel will have the entitlements they possess in terms of the law to enforce the law and also to oversee compliance with these terms of settlement.

Every attempt shall be made the parties to this settlement to ensure that camping of devotees who stay overnight or part thereof shall be limited to the inside the outer perimeter area. However, when such camping within the outer perimeter is not feasible due to a high turnout of devotees, they will be entitled to use the buffer zone which has a width of 100 metres beyond the outer perimeter on all sides.

At the time of the religious service, devotees who cannot necessarily congregate inside the outer perimeter area can extend beyond such area purely due to the need that arises as a result of high turnout of devotees. These settlements are not to be understood as giving an entitlement to violate any law of the land.

Those devotees who participate in the religious activities will not be permitted to collect firewood or any other resources from the surrounding environment. However, they will be entitled to cook within the said outer perimeter area or the extended area.

The authorities administering the Pallakandal Church shall ensure that the exercise of the entitlement contained herein will cause minimum damage to the environment.

The authorities administering the Pallakandal Church are entitled to use loud speakers up to a magnitude of 50 decibel day and night both during the said period. However, those loud speakers have to be necessarily located inside the outer perimeter area.

All public and private vehicles in which devotees arrived at the church should be parked in close proximity to the church.