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Retired judge now consents to be on bribery body
Retired Judge of the Court of Appeal, K. Viknarajah has consented to serve as a member of the permanent Commission to Investigate Bribery and Corruption after rejecting the post nearly nine months back.

Constitutional Council Chairman and ex-Speaker, Joseph Michael Perera told The Sunday Times that Mr. Viknarajah had given his consent to serve on the Commission by submitting his application. He said accordingly the Council has decided to recommend his name to President Chandrika Kumaratunga to be appointed to the post.

Mr. Perera said that a 14-day period would be given to the public to file any objections before the name is submitted to the President. Mr. Perera said at Thursday's meeting of the Council that Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse who initially proposed Mr. Viknarajah's name had submitted his application which has been forwarded to a sub-committee.

Earlier when Mr. Rajapakse had nominated the name of Mr. Viknarajah in June last year Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who is a member of the Commission had seconded the name. But Mr. Viknarajah had refused to undergo a cumbersome procedure of filling up an application.

According to the procedure the applicant would have to appear before a panel for an interview while the marking system requires that the applicant scores a minimum of 45 points to qualify for selection. The application form also requires a detailed declaration of assets of the family members, including personal jewellery.

The selection process has come under criticism earlier as when distinguished public servants are selected they had to undergo unnecessary scrutiny.
As a result of the failure to fill the vacancy more than 1000 complaints which have been received have gone uninvestigated so far while in some 55 cases where investigations have been completed the Commission cannot go ahead with filing the indictments.

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