MONEY LAUNDERING RISK IN NORTHERN SRI LANKA
Mr S
Yogendra
Mather & Ramanathan
Attorneys at law
Colombo
Sri Lanka
29 October 2022
Mr Yogendra,
SUBRAMANIAM YOGANATHAN’S TESTAMENTARY MATTER T55/2011
I write further to my
yesterday’s letter. This morning I asked my ancestral powers for guidance in
this matter, which to my mind seems like money-laundering activity.
The
following facts, when consolidated, lead me to
the conclusion:
1.
Yoganathan passed away on 20 -04-2010. According to the
Petitioners he fell into the well when bathing.
2.
I went in September 2010 to my husband’s ancestral home given as
dowry by her father to the Petitioner Mrs Sakthidevy Mahadevan. Before his death, Yoganathan
also lived in that home but had all his meals from outside.
3.
Mr Sellathurai Mahadevan who was
listed as 1st Petitioner by you, lamented with tears in his eyes that
Yoganathan had not trusted him but that
he trusted Sabanathan (3rd Respondent in your list) who had custody
of bank documents.
4. I said to him that he
had same rights as Sabanathan
and promised to do what I could, as I had helped Senthil (eldest son of the eldest
brother of the deceased) when his brother passed away and also when his father
passed away. Mahadevan said that his wife had the bank
statements in her custody.
5. Then I asked Mrs Sakthidevy
Mahadevan to show me
the relevant documents
6. Mrs Sakthidevy
Mahadevan said that she
needed the approval of her sister Mrs Saraswathy Sabanathan(4th
Respondent in your list).
7.
My husband spoke to Mrs Sakthidevy Mahadevan and stated that I had all the rights
he had.
8.
Later
Mrs Sabanathan rang my husband and stated that he had brought shame to the
family by marrying me . (The point you used repeatedly to upset me in courts)
9.
On
21 October 2010, Mrs Saraswathy Sabanathan, wrote to Barlays Bank UK - without our knowledge. We learnt about this
from the Court documents. In that letter
she asks for guidance to withdraw the funds. The Bank responded to
her . This was included in the court documents filed by you.
10.
About
four months later, in February 2011, Sabanathan Yohananda the
son of 3rd and 4th Respondents, rang us from Northern Sri
Lanka and I answered the phone.
11.
Yohananda
(Yohar) said it would be good if my
husband (Param) wrote over his share to the two sisters. In support, he said
that the other brother Tharmalingam (1st Respondent) had already
done so. That handover by Tharmalingam did not ‘seem’ right to me – because
Yoganathan had already shared with me his feelings that Tharmalingam lacked
independence. Param also refused to oblige Yohar.
12.
Yohar
said that if Param did write over his share, it would be easy to withdraw
monies from the banks.
13.
In
order to ensure that due processes were upheld, I asked Yohar to send the forms
from the bank, where the monies were deposited, together with the details of
bank balances. When the forms came, I realised that the monies as stated were
far above the limit of Rs 500k (as stated in the form) that could be drawn
without Administration.
14.
Param
rang the brother’s son – Venu - working in Singapore and asked him for
confirmation of the information provided by Yohar. Venu did confirm. Param said to me he was
determined not to sign over his share to the sisters.
15.
When Yohar rang me again, that time, I advised
them to go through a lawyer. They hired
you.
16.
You
(Mr Yogendra), advised us that there were monies in the UK amounting to about
100k pounds and that my husband was entitled to a ‘small share’. As per
the documental evidence we had access to, through the courts, Yohar already had
knowledge of the UK money when he sent
me the details but he did not include that in the list he sent me.
17.
Param
said that we needed to go through the Indigenous Tamil law of Thesawalamai. According
to which brothers inherited from brothers.
18. You sent us letter dated 06-12-2011
seeking our signatures to the declaration ‘We the undersigned 1. Subramaniam
Paramasivam, the 5th respondent and 2. Gajaluxamy Paramasivam 6th
respondent (husband and wife) in the above case, have no objections to the application
made to this court by the 1st and 2nd Petitioners above
mentioned for the issue of Certificates of Heirships to the Estate of the deceased
Subramaniam Yoganathan.’
19. In your covering letter you have
stated ‘As you are the Brother and others are sisters all of you can obtain
equal shares and conclude this matter at your earliest without infighting, which
will delay the whole matter for a long time.’
20. According to the Proxy, you had the
authority to collect monies.
21. As per the Financial Schedule filed
by you on 31-05-2011, the total value of the Assets was Rs 17,132,993.98 and
Liabilities listed were Rs. 675,000 which included Rs 200,000 as Advance
deposit for Legal expenses and Rs 450,000 to Mr Sabanathan the 3rd Respondent.
22. As per Paragraph 6 of the Petition
dated 31-05-2011 ‘The Petitioner applies to Your Honours Court for the issue of
certificates of Heirship to each of the heirs’.
No Administrative power was applied for
23. My husband attached these documents
to his Affidavit dated 30-12-2011, as ‘Annexure A’.
24. Our Objection together with the Affidavit
was filed on 16 January 2012. We sought ‘Administration’ and Certificates of
heirship.
25. When you filed your clients’
petition in court, you drew special attention to in the Application as well as well
as their Affidavit – to the fact that our children were not biological children
of my husband. (This later resulted in us writing a new will – so our earned
and saved wealth from zero base would not be claimed by my husband’s relatives.)
26. On 26 January 2012 Judge Arumanayakam of
Mallakam District Court asked me a few questions to verify the validity of my
husband’s Affidavit. Then, the judge questioned
the Mr Mahadevan as to whether they had sent us the documents attached
to the Affidavit. Mr Mahadevan stated that their lawyer (you) had sent the documents. You, Mr Yogendra
were not present in court. A junior lawyer appeared. The judge roared and
stated that he would not have lawyers
conducting a de facto court, outside the courthouse.
27. My husband’s Affidavit was set aside by Judge
Gajanithipalan but the order was not released until much later
28. We Appealed to the High Court which upheld decided
that it did not have authority to address the question of ‘Administration’ of
monies in the UK but upheld the District Court decision of Equal share to all
siblings. That decision was delivered on 14 March 2018. The files were sent back
to Mallakam District Court.
29. This was preceded by the decision on 28-09-2016 that
the District Court order was interlocutory and leave to appeal was granted.
30. On 18
March 2018, Mr Manivannan who is now Mayor of Jaffna, and who then represented
us in the Appeal Court, wrote to me as follows:
From: visva manivannan [mailto:vsvmanivannan@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, 18 March 2018 4:09 PM
To: gaja param
Subject: Re: Judgment in Our Matter
We can get the copy by next week. We have to go before the
Supreme Court within 42 days
31. The certificate of Heirship was issued on 20 June
2018, as per your application to Court. You did not send us a copy. After
repeated applications, we received ours on 15 April 2021.
32. On 03 August 2018, I stated as
follows in my letter to you:
It is my husband’s understanding that you stated as follows on the
phone, in response to his letter dated 27 July 2018:
•
Certificates of Heirship have
already been issued by the Court
•
That monies from some banks in
Sri Lanka have been remitted to the Courts and that there were more to be
collected
•
That the Administration
regarding Barclay’s wealth monies were
already underway
Would you please advise us of the current situation in relation to
each of the accounts in the schedule submitted to the Court. The Petitioners who filed the schedule seem
to have misled the Court in this regard.
Would you also list in detail,
the steps taken by your clients in relation to applying for
Administration in relation to the wealth of the Deceased in the UK. I draw your
particular attention to the following sections of the UK
ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATES ACT 1925…..:
33. On 26 March 2019, my husband filed a ‘Right
to Information’ Application seeking details of any Authority under which the
Registrar of Mallakam District Court was playing the role of ‘Administrator’. Your clients had argued in Court that no administration was
needed.
34. In January this year during our
meeting with the Registrar of Mallakam District Court, – he said that there was
no record of the death of the Petitioner Mrs Sakthidevy
Mahadevan.
35. During this meeting we learnt that
the monies collected from the Sri Lankan banks was about 5 million rupees
36. When we asked the Registrar whether
we could withdraw our share – he said that we had to file Accounts and move a
motion in Court
37. We instructed our Attorney to file
a fresh application for Administration due to the amount being in excess of 4
million limit without Administration.
38. On 28 October 2022, I wrote to you as follows: ‘As per
my intuition, my husband rang today, the Registrar of Mallakam District court,
to find out the progress made in this matter. The Registrar informed us that you
had rung today and have arranged to collect the monies of two of the parties on
Wednesday. We have been informed that you had moved in Court to get the order
to collect the monies. I am informing you that I seek to initiate legal action
against you in Colombo regarding this matter unless you respond immediately to the
following:
1.
Under which section of the Civil Procedure code have
you moved this matter after the death of the Petitioner, Mrs Sakthidevy
Mahadevan, in February 2021.
2.
During our meeting with the registrar, in January
this year, he informed us that one of the requirements before withdrawing
monies was the filing of a Statement of Accounts. As you must know, our demands
in this regard, to Mrs Sabanathan who seems to have withdrawn the monies in UK, have been ignored by her. Unless
your parties have been exempted from filing accounts, I expect Mrs Sabanathan
to file accounts at the Mallakam District Court. If you have a copy of the
accounts, I request you to send it to us by email.
I have since decided
that the Court Process would be too long and frustrating. Hence I propose to
share my experience with others – especially the Sri Lankan Diaspora, to beware
of effective money laundering activities such as this, in Northern Sri Lanka. I
expect the Judicial Services Commission also to inquire into this – as Judge
Gajanithipalan was delaying the delivery of his decision and needed a complaint
to the Commission, to deliver his decision. If the Courts are continuing to delay, the risk of money-laundering is
high. My record in this regard is in the Appendix
Appendix
My ‘intelligence’ in
this was developed in Australia as well as Sri Lanka’s North where I was
approached by those who were syphoning off monies from the accounts of the dead. Here in Australia,
the monies were getting transferred from ANZ bank to St George bank. I
complained to the Banking Ombudsman but they failed to make a finding against
the Banks. But due to my truth, and commitment to law, I learnt the modus
operandi of such operators. This protected me from others in similar ‘business’
whom I naturally opposed.
When I got to know what
they were doing and refused to be involved, I had a call from the
Thiruketheeswaram temple priest I met in 2006, when I went to do the last rites
of Paramanathan Shanmugalingam (youngest son of the eldest brother of Yoganathan. The priest called soon after the ‘client’ who
said he would pay me 10% of the money which he said was from his ‘customers’.
Given the knowledge I had by then, I declined. That ‘client’ called me soon
after the priest and I felt that I had to go through the experience.
Later I was approached
by Sri Lankan Tamils to join them, on the understanding that they were for
development projects in North – a bit like Lycamobile’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan: I’
which is extremely popular within Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora. I did not say ‘no’
but said I would need to be paid a fee of 10% for writing the ‘proposal’ which
was also an offer I made to LTTE officials in Kilinochchi when they asked me to
remit money to them. In their case I offered to do it free for them. When I
went back to the van – the other passengers who had agreed to pay as asked,
were surprised that I was not pressured. I said that it was due to me not being
‘judgmental’ of the LTTE, nor taking any junior position with them.
The leader
in the group said that they could pay me well above the 10%. I stated that my
policy was 10% only. Later the coordinators of that group came over to our
cottage in our temple grounds at Sangarathai-Thunaivi. They asked for my signatures on the
‘certificates’ carrying our company name. I was ok with it as it was based on a
joint project. But as I started signing, I realised that the numbers were way above the ones trained. At that
moment, the lights went off and I realized that they were not being honest with
me. They never returned. That is how my truth indicates to me when some is
trying to cheat me.
Yours sincerely,
Gajalakshmi
Paramasivam
CC:
The Secretary
Judicial Service
Commission Secretariat
P.O.Box 573,
Hulftsdrop,
Colombo 12.
Sri Lanka
Mrs Saraswathy Sabanathan
'Sabanathan.Yohananda:team.telstra.com'; 'lordganesha_s:hotmail.com'
Mr Sellathurai Mahathevan
'Sri.Mahadevan:gpc.com.au'
Mr Subramaniam Tharmalingam
Kanagaratnam Ganeshayogan
Attorney at law
Mr D N Liyanage
Attorney at law
Mr S
Yogendra
Mather & Ramanathan
Attorneys at law
Colombo
Sri Lanka
28 October 2022
Mr Yogendra,
TESTAMENTARY MATTER T55/2011
As per my intuition, my husband rang today, the Registrar of Mallakam
District court, to find out the progress made in this matter. The Registrar
informed us that you had rung today and have arranged to collect the monies of
two of the parties on Wednesday. We have been informed that you had moved in
Court to get the order to collect the monies.
When I asked the Registrar – he stated that the file was in the chambers and
hence he could not give further details.
I am informing you that I seek to initiate legal action against you in
Colombo regarding this matter unless you respond immediately to the following:
1.
Under which section of the Civil Procedure code have
you moved this matter after the death of the Petitioner, Mrs Sakthidevy
Mahadevan, in February 2021.
2.
During our meeting with the registrar, in January
this year, he informed us that one of the requirements before withdrawing
monies was the filing of a Statement of Accounts. As you must know, our demands
in this regard, to Mrs Sabanathan who seems to have withdrawn the monies in UK, have been ignored by her. Unless
your parties have been exempted from filing accounts, I expect Mrs Sabanathan
to file accounts at the Mallakam District Court. If you have a copy of the
accounts, I request you to send it to us by email.
Mr Yogendra, the fact that we got to know this intuitively means that it
is now in the Court of Natural Justice. It happened once before also during Nallur festival – when the Registrar had this
very file open when I walked in unannounced. This is also Kantha Sashti time. To
me, this process is part of the last rites performed for Brother Yoganathan’s
soul to join our ancestors, so we would get their Blessings. Whoever lied in
court will reap the karma. To me, it is no coincidence that Mrs Sakthidevy
Mahadevan’s son did not get to do her last rites. To the extent you act in
breach of Due Process of law, you also will earn Mr Yoganathan’s curse on you,
on top of the curse of your Judicial Elders. Below in an excerpt from my current
book on how I settle scores through my writing. That is like Jury verdict:
‘As I picked up my file I said to our lawyer ‘I am
really disappointed with you.’ At that moment Mr. Yogendra who was standing
next to our lawyer – at the head of the bar-table also looked in my direction –
and I said to him ‘as for you’ and in Tamil
‘I am not a prostitute’. So saying, I
walked towards the Public end of the Court.’
That was my judgment of the Judiciary that
failed to respect lawful marriage, but rubbished it to ‘win’ money by cheating.
The next time we went to Vaddukoddai and were speaking
to Mr Moorthi who runs a small coconut shop – this guy who was known to be
talking to himself, said to Param ‘Where are you going with your wife?’
That spot was almost opposite Param’s ancestral home, given to his sister as
dowry. I felt that Param’s ancestors were comforting me in terms of my true
position of ‘wife’.
Yours sincerely,
Gajalakshmi
Paramasivam
CC:
The Secretary
Judicial Service
Commission Secretariat
P.O.Box 573,
Hulftsdrop,
Colombo 12.
Sri Lanka
Mrs Saraswathy Sabanathan
'Sabanathan.Yohananda:team.telstra.com'; 'lordganesha_s:hotmail.com'
Mr Sellathurai Mahathevan
'Sri.Mahadevan:gpc.com.au'
Mr Subramaniam Tharmalingam
Kanagaratnam Ganeshayogan
Attorney at law
Mr D N Liyanage
Attorney at law
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