Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy urged the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal judge to use his residual powers to allow him to lead arguments in law as to why the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam should be continued.
Questioning the locus standi of MDMK general secretary Vaiko and Tamil Nationalist Forum leader P.Nedumaran, who gave the impression that they were appearing in defence of the banned LTTE, Dr.Swamy said that under Section 4 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the only parties that should appear before the Tribunal were the Centre and the LTTE. The Judge made it clear that no one has been allowed in this regard and if Dr.Swamy wanted to argue, he should file an application. In any case, the intention of the sitting on Thursday was to record statements of five witnesses (who were investigating officers) during the period of the ban till now. Dr.Swamy said that he would file an application by the next sitting of the Tribunal, November 1.
Mr.Vaiko's suggestions while recording the statements of the officers were put to the officers by the judge.
According to a release from MDMK, the judge, at one point, asked if the LTTE was still functional as an organisation. Mr.Vaiko replied that the LTTE could not be destroyed fully at any time.
In a separate petition filed before the Tribunal, Vijayaratnam Sivanesan, who claimed that he was an active LTTE cadre till 1990 and now holds Swiss travel documents, represented by his power of attorney holder Kalaiarasu, contended that “the Government of India ought to have considered afresh the materials available during the period from May 20, 2009 to May 14, 2010, for arriving at a conclusion whether there was sufficient cause for declaring the LTTE as an unlawful association. Since there was no cause, much less sufficient cause for the Central Government to declare the LTTE as an unlawful association on May 14, 2010, the notification deserves to be cancelled by the Tribunal.”
