Sundaralingam v. Ronnie De Mel, Minister of Finance and Others – sllr 1983 volume 2 page 474

In Sundaralingam v. Ronnie de Mel, Minister of Finance, and Others, the court addressed the issue of whether the appellant’s sterling pension should be converted at the historically fixed rate of Rs.15 per sterling, as stipulated in the original appointment and relevant colonial regulations, or at the new official exchange rate established by the Monetary (Amendment) Law No. 16 of 1977. It was held that pension payments are governed by the contractual terms and the continuity of historical pension regulations, not by subsequent foreign exchange regulations intended for spot currency transactions. The principle reaffirmed is that pension rights, once vested under contract and statute, are not affected by later monetary legislation unless expressly provided. This decision relied on the inter