Seven of the ten accused in one of Sri Lanka’s biggest ever cases of white-collar crime, the Rs. 10 billion worth Central Bank bonds scam, were served their criminal indictments in the Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar yesterday but while their lawyers verbally accepted the indictment in court, the actual document, accompanied as it was with some 1 million pages of production items, could not be physically served due to its bulk. Court staff could not recall such a situation in recent memory in which the indictment document was so voluminous that it could not be physically served in court.
Indictments in connection with the February 2015 Central Bank treasury bond scam were served on seven accused including Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL) beneficiary owner Arjun Joseph Aloysius.
However, the first accused, former Central Bank Governor Arjun Mahendran and, tenth accused, Ajahn Gardiya Punchihewa, a director PTL, were not present in Court and Court was informed that the duo were absconding from court from the time of the magisterial inquiry into the matter.
Future legal action against the two absconding accused is to be decided on July 24 by the Trial-at-Bar bench.
Each of the seven accused who appeared in court yesterday was released on a cash bail of one million rupees with two sureties of five million rupees. The accused who were ordered to be released on bail are: Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank P. Samarasiri, the PTL beneficiary owner Arjun Joseph Aloysius, PTL Chief dealer Kasun Palisena, Chairman of Perpetual Treasuries Limited Jeffrey Joseph Aloysius, PTL directors Pushya Mithra Gunawardena, Chitta Ranjan Hulugalle, Muthuraja Surendran. The seven accused were barred from leaving the country and court ordered that their passports be taken into court custody.
Meanwhile, Additional Solicitor General Priyantha Nawana appearing on behalf of the Attorney General explained the measures taken by prosecutors to extradite Arjuna Mahendran from Singapore. ASG Nawana informed court that Arjuna Mahendran had left the country since October 13, 2017 by purposely evading courts. Mr. Nawana moved court to issue a warrant for the arrest of first accused Mahendran in order to expedite the extradition process. The Court will consider this request on July 24.
Criminal indictments have been filed in this case against former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank P. Samarasiri, Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL), the PTL beneficiary owner Arjun Joseph Aloysius, PTL Chief dealer Kasun Palisena, Chairman of Perpetual Treasuries Limited Jeffrey Joseph Aloysius, PTL directors Pushya Mithra Gunawardena, Chitta Ranjan Hulugalle, Muthuraja Surendran and Ajahn Gardiya Punchihewa.
Meanwhile, the Trial-at-bar bench, comprising High Court Judges Sampath Abeykoon (President), Sampath Wijeratne and Champa Janaki Rajaratne, fixed the case for July 24.
According to the indictments, all ten accused have been charged for conspiracy to commit criminal misappropriation in respect of treasury bonds to the face value of Rs.10.058 billion and Mahendran and Samarasiri have been charged criminal breach of trust in respect of treasury bonds to the face value of Rs. 10.058 billion resulting in a loss to the government of Rs 688,762,100.
Former Deputy Governor P. Samarasiri is accused of abetting the former Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran to commit criminal breach of trust in respect of treasury bonds. The PTL is accused of insider dealing and criminal misappropriation in respect of Treasury Bonds to the face value of Rs 5 billion. Mahendran, Samarasiri, Aloysius, Palisena and the director board of PTL are accused of abetting PTL to commit insider dealing and criminal misappropriation.
The Charges have been presented under the Public Property Act and Registered Stocks and Securities Ordinance. The Attorney General has named 115 individuals as prosecution witnesess and further listed 236 documents as production items. The supporting evidence in the form of court productions is understood to number over 1 million pages of documents.
**************************************************
Permanent High Court serves indictments on Arjun and others (14:02)
The Permanent High Court-at-Bar today served indictments on PTL owner Arjun Aloysius and 7 others over the Central Bank bond scam.
They were ordered to be released on a cash bail of Rs. 10 lakhs and two sureties of Rs.25 lakhs each by the High Court.
