The Colombo High Court today (20) ordered to call a pre-trial conference in the case filed by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) against former Minister of Investment Promotion Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena and former Director General of the Board of Investment (BOI) Jayantha Edirisinghe on September 7.
The case has been filed by the Bribery Commission alleging that the duo caused a loss of over Rs. 1.7 million to the government during the tenure of Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena as the Minister of Investment Promotion.
The case was called before the Colombo High Court Judge Pradeep Abeyratne today (20), said Ada Derana reporter.
During today’s proceedings, the attorney appearing for the Bribery Commission presented facts before court and requested permission to make several amendments to the indictment.
Accordingly, court granted permission to the Bribery Commission to amend the relevant indictment.
Thereafter, the attorney appearing for the Bribery Commission provided a CD containing documents related to the indictment to the defense lawyers.
At that time, President’s Counsel Sanjay Rajaratnam, appearing for the defendant, stated that it would be appropriate if the documents are provided as printed copies.
In response, the attorney for the Bribery Commission stated that since there was a large quantity of documents submitted as attachments in relation to this case, these documents were provided in the form of a CD.
Accordingly, the President’s Counsel, appearing for the defendant, stated that he is ready to accept the CD considering the inconvenience caused to the republic and that if an issue arose regarding any document, he would make requests to provide copies of it.
The judge also informed the Bribery Commission that if the defendant requests any document, to make necessary arrangements to provide the copies.
Thereafter, the attorneys appearing for the defendant stated that they expected to present preliminary objections regarding the indictments against the defendants.
The judge stated that the preliminary objections should be presented at the commencement of the trial.
The High Court judge then ordered that the case be called for a pre-trial conference on September (7).
