Keheliya and Jayampathy discharged over bribery case

Complying with the High Court Order over the maintainability of the case, the Colombo Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne today discharged Minister Keheliya Rambukwella and former Chairman of the State Printing Corporation Jayampathi Bandara.

The suspects were earlier accused of using Rs. 230,000 of the State Printing Corporation in 2012 to pay Mr Rambukwella’s personal mobile phone bill incurring losses to the government.

However, the defence at the outset of the inquiry brought up a Preliminary Objection that the case could not be maintained as the prosecution had not filed the case with the sanction of the all members of the Bribery Commission according to Section 78 of the Bribery Act.

This Preliminary Objection was initially rejected by the Chief Magistrate and consequently the High Court accepted ordering the Magistrate to discharge the suspects.

The Chief Magistrate discharging the suspects reiterated that the discharge was due to an error by the prosecution in filing the case and that a fresh case could be filed against the suspects. (Shehan Chamika Silva)