By DPA
Colombo : Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Thursday granted permission to proceed with the hearing of a case filed against the government for forcibly evicting minority Tamils from their temporary homes in the capital, a court official said.
Earlier the court intervened and prevented the eviction process, which had forced more than 400 Tamils to leave the capital and travel back to the war-torn northern and eastern parts of the country.
All Tamil civilians evicted by the police were re-transported in state-run buses to the capital free of charge last month after the court held that the action to evict them was illegal.
The Supreme Court Thursday granted leave to proceed on the petition, which enables the petitioner to attempt to prove that the fundamental rights of the civilians had been violated by the police and security forces.
The petition was filed by a civil rights organisation known as the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA).
The defence secretary, the inspector general of police and the armed forces commanders are among those who have been cited as those responsible for evicting the civilians.
The government subsequently apologised for the action, but security forces said the action was necessary to prevent infiltration of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, who were believed to be responsible for two claymore mine attacks in the capital and its outskirts.