Sri Lanka's constitutional crisis over the issue of powers of President Chandrika Kumaratunga shows no signs of subsiding with the President insisting that her previous order to take control of a state run lottery remains unchanged.

Kumaratunga in a letter to Wickremesinghe issued a warning that she would take tough action against Mass Communications Minister Imthiaz Bakeer Markar unless he immediately withdraws what she sees as an 'illegal order'.

Markar has issued an order preventing the publication of a gazette in which Kumaratunga has declared that she was taking over the Development Lotteries Board.

As a result of the order issued by the minister, the government printer has not gone ahead to print the gazettee notification to give legal status to Kumaratunga's order.

In her letter to Wickrem-esinghe, the President said Bakeer Markar's order to the Government Printer to stop publication of a Gazette notification on the takeover of the Development Lotteries Board was illegal.

She warned the Prime Minister she was considering tough action against the minister though she did not specify what she intended to do. Taking an uncompromising approach, the President insisted that her takeover of the DLB was well within her powers and the Attorney General's views to the contrary were, in her view, irrelevant.

"I have had no response from you to my letter dated May 13, although 11 days have now elapsed since then and there appears to be much uncertainty among the public officials and members of the public concerning the actual position in this matter", Kumaratunga said in her letter to Wickremesinghe.

The ruling United National Front (UNF) government has been insisting that Kumaratunga cannot take over control of the Lotteries board. Some of the ministers have gone public criticising Kumaratunga over the issue and blamed her for not consulting Wickremesinghe about the take over.

The Attorney General has given his opinion about the issue, after the Government Printer clarified with him about the status of the gazette notification. However Kumaratunga has not sought the opinion of the AG.

In a related development Kumaratunga also ordered the Chairman of the DLB to halt all proposed recruitment schemes, promotions, providing of newspaper advertisement and also launching of new programmes.