The Matara Magistrate’s Court has ordered a man to compensate the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) for losses caused when he climbed a high-voltage transmission tower in protest over a family dispute, blacking out seven areas of the district for more than two hours.
The incident took place on July 21 in Kamburupitiya, where the man scaled a tower belonging to the high-voltage transmission network. The CEB was forced to cut supply to Thihagoda, Kamburupitiya, Akuressa, Mulatiyana, Deiyandara, Mawarala and Deniyaya while he remained on the structure.
Police brought the man’s family members to the site, after which he climbed down. He was arrested immediately and produced before the Matara Magistrate’s Court, which remanded him until July 24.
When the case was taken up on July 24, the Chief Magistrate of Matara directed Kamburupitiya Police to calculate the financial loss the outage had caused the CEB and report back to court. The suspect was further remanded until July 28.
Police told the court on Tuesday that the outage, lasting over two hours, had cost the utility Rs. 201,059.90. The suspect admitted to the offence during the hearing, and the court ordered him to pay compensation for the losses.
The case was postponed to November 3 for further proceedings.
Sri Lanka’s transmission network carries voltages high enough to be lethal on contact, and the CEB’s standing practice is to de-energise a line entirely when an unauthorised person is on a tower — a measure that protects the intruder but removes supply from every customer downstream. The court’s compensation order attaches a direct financial consequence to that disruption, in a case where the cost fell on consumers across seven localities who had no connection to the underlying dispute.
