Mayadunne Corea J

The Petitioner in this Application, among other things, has sought the following reliefs:

“(c) To grant and issue a mandate in the nature of a Writ of Prohibition prohibiting one or more of the Respondents from releasing the Employees’ Provident Fund of the deceased husband of the Petitioner to the 5^th Respondent with regard to the facts and incidents averred in the Petition;

(d) To grant and issue a mandate in the nature of a Writ of Certiorari quashing any decision arrived at by one or more of the Respondents from releasing the Employee’s Provident Fund of the deceased husband of the Petitioner to the 5^th Respondent in respect of the facts and incident averred in the Petition;

(e) To grant and issue a Judicial Declaration that the Petitioner has a right and is entitled to the Employee’s Provident Fund of the deceased husband of the Petitioner;

(f) To grant and issue a mandate in the nature of a Writ of Mandamus directing and/or compelling one or more to take appropriate action to complete 1^st-4^th Respondent release the said Employees’ Provident Fund to the Petitioner.”

The facts of the case briefly are as follows. The Petitioner states that her deceased husband was employed as a driver at the Road Development Authority, Ratnapura until his demise. At the time of her marriage, the Petitioner was unaware that her husband was previously married and had a son from his prior marriage. After her husband’s demise, the Petitioner applied to the Department of Labour, Sabaragamuwa Province, to obtain the Employees’ Provident Fund (herein referred to as “EPF”) of her husband as she had been appointed as a nominee under the Employees’ Fund Certificate. At the same time, the 5^th Respondent, the son of the deceased, had also applied to obtain the EPF. The Petitioner alleges that the refusal to release the EPF of her deceased husband amounts to an unreasonable, illegal, unlawful, and irrational decision. Hence this Application.

The Respondents’ objection

The Respondents objecting to the issuance of notice submitted, that the Petitioner’s Application cannot succeed as the said Application is,

• Misconceived in law

• The Petitioner has misrepresented and suppressed material facts.

This Court will now consider the Petitioner’s Application with the objections of the Respondents.

Petitioner’s case

The Petitioner was married to the W.A.G. Udayakumara who was working at the Road Development Authority. The Petitioner’s husband expired on 15.01.2023. At the time of her husband’s death, the Petitioner had been working abroad and the deceased had been staying with his father and the son. Subsequently, the Petitioner has applied to obtain the EPF benefits which were due to her late husband. She had been informed that on the same date her application was received, the son of the deceased, too, had made a claim for his father’s EPF benefits. The Petitioner contends that her claim is based on the premise that she is the wife of the deceased and had been a nominee to receive the EPF benefits. This position is established by a reply the Petitioner has received on a Right to Information request made by her. As per the said document the nomination had been made on 28.05.2018. It is the contention of the Petitioner that she was legally married to the deceased and that the nomination was made on the same basis of her being his legal wife.

However, the Respondents contend that the Petitioner was never legally married to the deceased as the marriage contracted has no legal validity. Hence though there is a nomination the said nomination lacks legality. The attention of the Court was drawn to the document marked as P 11, the marriage certificate of the Petitioner to the deceased. The said marriage had been contracted on 5.12.2016. The Respondents contended that the deceased had had a marriage prior to the purported marriage to the Petitioner. From the said marriage the deceased had a child who is the 5^th Respondent. Subsequently, the deceased had instituted d