Issue of notice to Centre on proposed sale of warships to SL

The Madras High Court today sought Centre's response on a PIL against the proposed sale of two Naval warships to Sri Lanka.
The HC bench of Justices Jayachandhran and M Venugopal ordered issuance of notice and posted the case for hearing to October 8.
Petitioner K Stalin, a city-based advocate, had submitted yesterday that Minister of State in the PMO V Narayanasamy had recently stated that India was in the process of supplying two warships to Sri Lanka.
He alleged that the Sri Lankan Navy killed 500 fishermen from Tamil Nadu, while thousands of Tamils in the island republic were killed by its Army during the war against LTTE.

Stating there was a strong sentiment against Sri Lanka in Tamil Nadu, he said Tamils were angered and agonised by the proposal to sell warships as "these could be used against the fishermen from the state".
Stalin said that he had filed the petition as there had been no response to his representation to the union government and the state chief secretary to drop the proposal.