Former President’s Chief of Staff Gamini Sedara Senarath and two others have filed three Fundamental Rights petitions in the Supreme Court. They are seeking an order preventing the FCID from arresting them over a magisterial inquiries under the Public Property Act.
They have been named as suspects in a case for allegedly misusing Rs.4 billion in government funds by the Colombo Fort Magistrate.
Following a FCID request, the Fort Magistrate had also issued an order preventing them from leaving the country.
In their petitions, Gamini Sedara Senarath, former Managing Director of the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Piyadasa Kudabalage and former Commissioner of Samurdhi Neil Bandara Hapuwinna had cited Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara, the FCID Director, the Attorney General and several others as respondents. The petitioners maintained that the imminent arrest of themselves by the FCID at this juncture for politically motivated and malafide intentions of punishing the petitioner by depriving them of their personnel liberty for no legally justifiable reason and therefore constitutes an imminent infringement of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed to the petitioner by Article 14(1)(h) and 12(1) and 12(2) of the Constitution.
According to a B report filed before the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court, they have been accused of misusing government funds by illegally investing Rs.4 billion from the Rs.18.5 billion approved by the Cabinet in 2012. The concerned funds had been the allocation for the Kollupitiya Grand Hyatt Regency Hotel to be constructed by a company affiliated to the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, but invested in the Hambantota Hyatt Regency Hotel project.
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