COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s new president has restored the country’s former chief justice after she was controversially impeached by the previous administration.

Lawyers welcomed Shirani Bandaranayake with bouquets of flowers when she went to the Supreme Court in Colombo after receiving the news.

A government official said President Maithripala Sirisena had written to Bandaranayake to say her 2013 impeachment was unconstitutional and she should return to work.

“The chief justice was restored and the imposter was asked to go,” said the official, referring to Mohan Peiris, who was appointed to the role by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Sirisena had vowed in his election manifesto to restore Bandaranayake, who was sacked after her judgments went against Rajapaksa’s regime.

Despite a chorus of criticism at home and abroad, he appointed Peiris, the government’s senior legal adviser, as her replacement.

Bandaranayake’s sacking was widely criticized, with the the UN Human Rights Council calling it an assault on judicial independence.

Since Rajapaksa’s dramatic defeat at the January 8 elections, Peiris had been under pressure to stand down after he was implicated in an alleged coup attempt to keep the former leader in power.

Police have opened a criminal investigation into claims that the defeated strongman tried to use military force and that Peiris was trying to provide legal justification for him to stay on in office.

There was no immediate comment from Peiris.