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Sil cloth case: Weeratunga, Palpita to appeal next week
An appeal against the judgment delivered by the Colombo High Court in the ‘sil cloth’ case is expected to be filed next week in the Court of Appeal. Former Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga and Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) Director General Anusha Palpita were sentenced to three years Rigorous Imprisonment each and fined Rs. 2 million each by Colombo’s High Court Judge Gihan Kulatunga on Thursday after they were found guilty of misusing public funds.
Pointing out that the two officials’ action had caused a loss of Rs. 600 million to the state, the judge also ordered them to pay compensation amounting to Rs.100 million. When the judgment was delivered, counsel Kalinga Indatissa told court his clients would appeal.
Delivering the judgment, the judge said that one should look at the matter from the point of view of both the defendants and society when ruling on punishment for someone convicted of such a crime.
The judge observed that it seemed Government officials had been tempted to engage in illegal activities by the political culture that prevailed at the time. He noted that the dishonest intentions of the defendants had been exposed by their haste to immediately release Rs. 600 million from the TRC fund even without obtaining approval from the TRC Director Board for something as inessential as distributing sil cloth.
Even if the Director Board had given its approval for the measure, it would still have been illegal to utilise funds for objectives that run contrary to those of the TRC, the judge pointed out. Moreover, the move to distribute sil cloth with propaganda leaflets of one candidate when the Elections Commissioner had already gazetted that a Presidential wlection would be held in January 2015, clearly offered an advantage for one candidate over the other, the judge said.
The Attorney General had filed charges against the accused on two counts each. Both were charged with conspiracy to deposit Rs. 600 million in TRC funds in an account belonging to the Presidential Secretariat at the Bank of Ceylon. In addition, Mr. Palpita was charged with depositing the Rs. 600 million with the Presidential Secretariat while Mr. Weeratunga was also charged with aiding and abetting him to carry out the transaction.
Accordingly, Mr. Palpita was found guilty of the first and second charges while Mr. Weeratunga was found guilty of the first and third charges. The judge imposed a prison term of 1 1/2 years of RI for the two defendants and Rs.1 million fine for the first charge. Mr. Palpita was also found guilty of the second charge and sentenced to a further 1 1/2 years RI plus Rs.1 million fine.Mr. Weeratunga was sentenced to 1 1/2 years RI and imposed a Rs.1 million fine after being found guilty of the third charge.
Failure to pay the combined fine of Rs. 2 million each would result in a further period of imprisonment lasting one year while failure to pay the Rs. 50 million compensation would result in a further period of two years RI being imposed on each defendant. The judge ordered them to pay the compensation before October 10.