A five-judge bench of the Court of Appeal has ordered that the corruption case against former minister Johnston Fernando and two former Co-operative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) officials be restored to the Colombo High Court trial roll, overturning an earlier ruling that had discharged them.
The judgment was delivered on Tuesday by Justice P. Kumararatnam, with Justices Damith Thotawatta, K.M.S. Dissanayake, K.P. Fernando and Annalingam Premashankar concurring.
The charges
Fernando, who served as Minister of Co-operatives and Internal Trade, is the first accused. Former CWE chairman Eraj Fernando is the second accused and a former acting director of the institution the third. NewsFirst names the third accused as Kaja Mohideen Mohamed Shakir; Daily Mirror renders the name as Mohideen Mohamed Zakeer.
The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) alleges that between 2010 and 2014, CWE employees were assigned duties unrelated to their official responsibilities while their salaries and overtime payments were met from institutional funds, causing a loss to the State. NewsFirst put the figure at nearly Rs. 60 million. The three are charged under Section 70 of the Bribery Act and also face a conspiracy charge.
Daily Mirror reported that the CIABOC investigation began in 2015 following an anonymous complaint about activities at the CWE. Indictments were filed in the Colombo High Court in 2022.
Why the case had collapsed
The defence raised preliminary objections arguing that the investigation had been launched without the full approval of a properly constituted Commission, and that applying the Bribery (Amendment) Act No. 22 of 2018 retrospectively was unlawful.
On May 19, 2023, the Colombo High Court upheld that objection, ruled the investigation invalid and discharged the accused.
The Court of Appeal has now allowed CIABOC’s revision application, set aside that order and dismissed all revision applications filed by the accused, directing the High Court to proceed with the hearing without further delay.
Both outlets described the ruling as a significant guideline on the Bribery Commission’s investigative powers and on the reach of the 2018 amendment.
Fernando was separately granted bail in April after four months in remand in the Lanka Sathosa lorry misuse case, and was questioned by the Illegal Assets Investigation Division in June over a separate matter.
