The Assets Unit of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption came under fire by one of its commissioners who said that there were more than 400 cases pending in the unit with no indictments being served.
Commissioner Indra de Silva claimed that it was such inefficiency that led to the recent transfer of two inspectors attached to this unit.
The two transferred officers later filed fundamental rights petitions in the Supreme Court -- with one of them alleging that Commissioner de Silva had told them to stop a probe in a case involving a minister who had allegedly amassed about Rs. 450 million.
The transfer of the two inspectors and its aftermath have exposed a rift between the Commissioners and the Assets Unit with the Unit’s Chief Inspector S. A. Weerasinghe giving a sworn affidavit supporting the statement made by the transferred officers in their petitions.
Among the cases pending in the Assets Unit are charges against politicians and public officials, The Sunday Times learns.
Asked why the Unit had failed to file indictments in any assets case, a source in the Unit said that there were only 16 officers assigned to the unit and the lack of staff made it difficult to probe such complicated cases.
Commissioner de Silva told The Sunday Times that a decision to
transfer Inspectors Nihal Amarasiri and K. A. Sujatha Kumari was based on their lack of performance. He said cases had been stagnating in the unit without indictments being served.
“There are some 400 files and some are old ones but no proper investigations have been done,” he said. “There was no purpose in keeping the two inspectors. In June, we recommended to the National Police Commission (NPC) that they be transferred. Now we are interviewing persons to replace them,” he said.
OIC Weerasinghe in his affidavit said Inspector Amerasinghe had informed him that Commissioner de Silva had asked him whether the probe on the minister’s assets could be stopped at his level as the minister concerned “had a future”.
The Minister has not been named keeping with the Bribery Commission Act under which officials are expected to maintain secrecy.
Meanwhile NPC Secretary K.C. Logeswaran said the Police Commission had delegated its powers to the IGP to deal with transfers and disciplinary matters of inspectors and other officers below that rank.
“When we were informed in writing of the trnasfers, we informed the IGP to take the necessary action with regards to Inspectors Amarasiri and Sujatha Kumari. If they had a grievance with regard to the IGPs decision, they could have appealed to the NPC prior to initiating legal action,” Mr. Logeswaran said.
In mid July, President Mahinda Rajapaksa directed the Attorney General's Department to take over with immediate effect all “important cases” being handled by the Bribery and Corruption Commission and ensure their successful prosecution.
A special Bribery Unit was set up in the AG’s Department. The Department has asked the Treasury for additional allocations of funds to purchase more hi-tech equipment to gather evidence in bribery and corruption cases.
However this directive for the AG’s department to take over bribery cases ran into difficulties in the Colombo Magistrate’s Court earlier this week when the Defence Counsel appearing in the case asked why the AG’s department was intervening in selected bribery cases whereas it should treat all cases alike.
The issue was raised by lawyer Anil Silva before the Colombo Chief Magistrate Ajith Anawaratna when Bribery Commission lawyer Menaka Munasinghe asked for a postponement of the case as the AG had to intervene in the matter.
In this case the Uva Province’s former Chief Minister Samaraweera Weerawanni and a serving Uva PC minister A. M. Buddhadasa are charged with causing monetary losses amounting to Rs. 662,168 by purchasing two road rollers and a motor grader.
| 
E-mail