JUDGEMENT

K.M.G.H. KULATUNGA, J.

1. The petitioner by this application is seeking writs of mandamus on the 1^st – 5^th respondents to compel and direct the said respondents to give effect to the decisions made by P-7 and P-27 and to implement the decision of the 2nd respondent dated 20.07.2005.

2. The petitioner claims to be the granddaughter of one H. J. de Silva, who happened to be a grantee of the Land Development Ordinance (LDO) permit P-1. Upon the demise of the said H. J. de Silva, his daughter, Rupa Karunawathie Makalanda, the nominee is succeded. The said Rupa Makalanda is the late mother of the petitioner. The petitioner claims to have been nominated as her mother’s successor. The said permit is marked and produced as P-1, according to which Rupa Makalanda had succeeded and named as permit holder on 07.11.1980. This is also reflected in the land ledger P-2. The petitioner has been nominated as a successor in P-1. It is the position of the petitioner that she was earmarked to succeed her mother, Rupa Makalanda.

3. That being so, due to certain other persons, including family members, encroaching and entering the said land, there has been a dispute as to possession. The said land was 20 acres in extent as per the original permit P-1. It is admitted that due to various such claims by other persons, including the 6^th–9th respondents, the petitioner’s mother was content to receive 5 acres of the said 20 acres. In view of the competing interests and disputes between the petitioner and others, the 1^st respondent Divisional Secretary and his predecessors have held several enquiries and formulated a compromised distribution scheme of the 20 acres amongst the competing parties. This had happened as far back as 2005. The 1^st respondent had, by letter P-7 dated 20.07.2005, informed the mother of the petitioner, R. K. Makalanda, and four others that, consequent upon the inquiry held by the Land Commissioner of the Central Province, it had been decided to allocate parcels of the said land, according to who each person was in occupation at that time. It was resolved thus;

It is specifically stated that R. K. Makalanda had agreed to the same. By paragraph 2 of the said letter, it was also conveyed that upon conducting a survey and the preparation of the subdivisions, based on the occupation, the processing of the permits may be notified, and the tentative allocation between the five persons therein also had been specified. That being so, the said proposed settlement had not materialised up until 2008. The permit granted to the petitioner’s mother, Rupa Makalanda, had been cancelled on 19.08.2008. Then, Rupa Makalanda had died in 2009. After the demise of Rupa Makalanda, the petitioner, being the daughter, had pursued this matter.

4. The petitioner is now seeking a writ to implement the intimation made by P-7 and reflected also in P-27. P-27 is a summary of certain decisions taken by the 1st – 4th respondents reiterating P-7. Under item 22 of P- 27, a decision has been taken to distribute the said land, as per the decision made on 20.07.2007 by P-7. The said decision in P-27 reads as follows:

It is these decisions that the petitioner is seeking to have implemented on the basis that it had created a legitimate expectation in the petitioner, who is the successor to her late mother, R. K. Makalanda.

5. The position taken up by the learned State Counsel on behalf of the respondents is that the petitioner has objected to the implementation of P-7 and P-27, which is reflected in the letter dated 14.03.2019 (marked P-29). It specifically states that the decision arrived at during the mobile service held on 26.08.2018, P-27 could not be implemented as the petitioner and L.K.G. Makalanda (the 9^th respondent) objected in writing. The State Counsel also objects to this application on the basis of delay or laches and the facts being in dispute. Further thereto, the petitioner being a retired government servant is not entitled to a permit under this categor