Chathurika Sirisena issued summons to appear before court on Sep 25

Summons have been issued on Chathurika Sirisena, the daughter of President Maithripala Sirisena to appear before the Colombo Fort Magistrate's court on September 25.

A case has been filed by the Colombo Fraud Investigation Bureau over an incident in which a document containing the forged signature of the President's daughter had been submitted to a private bank in order to obtain a bank loan.

The case had been filed after the loan officer of the bank had complained to the Fraud Bureau over the incident.

According to the loan officer, the document had sought a loan to be granted to two persons identified as Renuka Ranvala Arachchi and Koshika Vimukthi Kariyawasam.

In order to proceed with the case, notices had been issued on two previous occasions for Chathurika Sirisena to appear before court following which she had failed to do so.

During today's hearing, the Fraud Bureau had requested court to issue summons as Ms Sirisena had failed to appear in court previously. 

Ms Sirisena through her lawyer sent the following Right of Reply to our story which we publish below :

The case record of the relevant cases, in which my client is the complainant, states, however, to the contrary, as follows and we wish to clarify that;

Although the court had issued summons to my client to appear in this matter (in which she is the complainant) summons had not been handed over to my client at any time (19/09/2018, 13/02/2018, 26/06/2018)

Furthermore, according to the case record, it is evident that upon the decision of the prosecution to call a different witness, the Magistrate had instructed to notify my client (Witness No. 1) that she is not required to appear in court (01/07/2019).

Therefore please be informed that contrary to the allegation of your news report, my client has at no time been served summons and/or evaded court appearance, and in the aforesaid circumstances, chooses to exercise her right of reply.