The Court of Appeal has issued an interim order restraining the enforcement of a notice from the Director General of Coast Conservation requiring the demolition and removal of a restaurant on the Wellawatte beachfront, Hiru News reported.
The order remains in force until 21 September.
The court made the order after hearing argument from President’s Counsel Faiszer Musthapha, appearing for the petitioner business.
The timing is the story
Wellawatte sits inside the stretch of coast that Coast Conservation authorities ordered cleared last week.
On 5 September the Environment Minister, Dr. Dammika Patabendi, said the removal of unauthorised structures along the Colombo District coastal belt would begin this month, covering Galle Face to the Bolgoda River in five zones, with legal advice already obtained from the Attorney General. Reported alongside it was a separate instruction to clear unauthorised hotels, business establishments and other structures on the Bambalapitiya-to-Dehiwala stretch before 10 September.
Wellawatte lies between Bambalapitiya and Dehiwala. The interim order was made on 9 September — the day before that deadline — and runs to 21 September, eleven days past it.
This is the first reported legal challenge to the Colombo coastal clearance drive, and it arrived with a day to spare.
It answers questions the enforcement reporting left open
Our 5 September report noted that neither outlet covering the clearance order had said whether owners had been served individual notices, or what appeal or compensation route existed for those affected.
Wednesday’s order settles both, at least for one business. A notice was served, and it came from the Director General of Coast Conservation personally rather than from a local authority. And the route of challenge is judicial review in the Court of Appeal, which is the forum for contesting the decision of a public authority.
What the order does not do is decide the underlying question. An interim order restrains enforcement while the case is pending; it is not a finding that the restaurant is lawfully built. Construction inside Sri Lanka’s coastal reservation requires a permit from the Department of Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management, and Hiru’s report does not say whether this restaurant holds one, holds a disputed one, or holds none.
Enforcement elsewhere on the coast has proceeded without this obstacle — beachfront structures were demolished at Ahangama in August.
Not reported
Hiru does not name the restaurant or its owner, give the case number, say on what grounds the petitioner challenged the notice, or say what the notice required and by when. It does not say whether Coast Conservation was represented at the hearing or what position the state took, whether other businesses on the same stretch have filed similar applications, or what happens to the 10 September deadline for the rest of the Bambalapitiya–Dehiwala stretch.
It also does not say what is listed for 21 September — whether the interim order is to be extended, argued, or vacated on that date.
Sourcing note
Hiru News is the only verified newsroom to have filed on this order. The Daily Mirror’s latest-news listing carried nothing on it, NewsFirst’s latest listing carried nothing on it, and Ada Derana returned a CloudFront 403 domain-wide throughout this cycle. A search across the verified outlets returned only unrelated coastal-enforcement coverage from earlier years.
