Former Sri Lanka PM Mahinda Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa Barred By Supreme Court From Leaving Country

The former Prime Minister of the country, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned from the post of Prime Minister on 9 May.

Sri Lanka's former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (Source: File Photo/Gettya)

New Delhi: Sri Lanka's former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and ex-finance minister Basil Rajapaksa have been barred from leaving the crisis-hit country until July 28th, said news agency DailyMirror as reported by ANI. Basil Rajapaksa tried to leave the country last Tuesday. For which a petition has been filed against him in the Supreme Court. A five-judge bench of the Lankan Supreme Court comprising Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya, Justice Buwaneka Aluwihare, Justice Priyantha Jayawardena, Justice Vijith Malalgoda, and Justice LTB Dehideniya heard the petition on Friday against the two members.

Sri Lanka's Supreme Court today issued an interim order preventing former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Minister Basil Rajapaksa from leaving the country without the court's permission until July 28th: Sri Lanka's DailyMirror

(File photos) pic.twitter.com/xg290lfmLX

— ANI (@ANI) July 15, 2022

Basil, 71, is the younger brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. It is worth noting that Basil is an American passport holder, he resigned from the post of Finance Minister in the month of April. Basil is widely blamed for the country's worst economic crisis.

At the same time, the former Prime Minister of the country, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned from the post of Prime Minister on 9 May. Earlier in May, Mahinda was barred from traveling abroad by a Sri Lankan court in view of the probe against him for the deadly attack on anti-government protesters in Colombo. Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after Mahinda resigned.

Wickremesinghe has been appointed as the acting President of Sri Lanka in the absence of Gotabaya, who fled the country amid ongoing violence across the country. After which he declared a state of emergency in the country on Wednesday and imposed a curfew in the Western Province.

Sri Lanka is facing an unprecedented economic crisis since its independence. About 22 million people in the country are in the grip of recession. Due to this, millions of people are facing a serious crisis of food, medicine, fuel and other essentials.