W.A.D.D. Wijesinghe v. The 195th Respondent – CA WRIT APPLICATION NO. 332/2015-2020

In the case between Professor Dharmabandhu Nandadeva Samarasekera (Petitioner) and Professor Serosha Mandika Wijeyaratne (1st Respondent), University of Colombo, and the University Grants Commission, the court addressed the legality of the University of Colombo’s retroactive appointment of the 1st Respondent as Professor of Surgery (Co-Chair) effective from 2008, despite the prior appointment of the Petitioner to the same post. The main issues concerned whether an identified marking error in the 2008 selection process warranted disturbing the finality of the original appointment, and whether the University and the Commission complied with statutory procedures in creating an additional cadre post and filling it retrospectively. It was held that, although a marking mistake occurred, the Univ