The Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday ordered that six public figures — among them former ministers Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila and Mawbima Janatha Party MP Dilith Jayaweera — be reported to the Court of Appeal over allegations of contempt of court.

Also named are Sugeeshwara Bandara, Asanka Navaratne and senior lecturer Mahinda Pathirana.

The Criminal Investigation Department reported the facts of its investigation before Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena. After hearing the submissions, the court observed that, at first glance, the statements attributed to the six appeared to contain criticism of the judicial process, and decided to seek the institution of proceedings against them before the appellate court.

The statements at issue

According to NewsFirst, the order relates to statements allegedly made in public between July 7 and July 15, during a Satyagraha campaign protesting the arrest of former State Intelligence Service director Suresh Salley in connection with the Easter Sunday attacks investigation.

The allegations concern comments said to have been made in a manner critical of ongoing judicial proceedings. None of the six has been convicted of any offence, and the matter now moves to the Court of Appeal, which has jurisdiction over contempt proceedings.

How the case reached this point

Wednesday’s order is the outcome of an investigation the CID opened in mid-June against the same six individuals. At that stage, investigators told the Fort Magistrate that statements broadcast through electronic media and social media had “created public dissatisfaction, suspicion, disrespect, and contempt toward the judicial process”, and said charges would be filed under the Contempt of a Court, Tribunal or Institution Act, No. 8 of 2024.

Magistrate Amarasena declined at the time to issue summons, ruling that proceedings under the 2024 Act belonged before the Court of Appeal rather than the Magistrate’s Court, and directed that the six would be required to appear before the appellate court once the probe concluded. Wednesday’s decision completes that step.

The June filing described the statements as following Salley’s admission to hospital from CID custody on June 7. NewsFirst’s account of Wednesday’s order places the relevant statements in the later July 7–15 Satyagraha period.

The case sits within a widening set of proceedings around the Easter investigation. Salley remains in custody, and the Court of Appeal was due to take up intervening petitions in his case on August 6. A lawyers’ group has previously criticised the CID contempt probe as targeting political speech.

Update: Hiru corroborates the order

Hiru News independently reported the Fort Magistrate’s decision later on Wednesday, naming the same six — Gammanpila, Weerawansa, Jayaweera, Navaratne, Sugeeshwara Bandara and Mahinda Pathirana — and confirming that the magistrate ordered the Court of Appeal be informed of the statements found to amount to contempt.

Update: reports submitted to the Court of Appeal, August 23

Reports have now been submitted to the Court of Appeal against the six, NewsFirst reported on Sunday, completing the referral the Fort Magistrate ordered on August 5.

The outlet named the six as Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila, Sugeeshwara Bandara, Dilith Jayaweera, Asanka Navarathna and senior lecturer Mahinda Pathirana — the same list reported at the magistrate’s stage.

NewsFirst again traced the matter to the satyagraha demonstration held between July 7 and July 15 against the arrest of former State Intelligence Service chief Retired Major General Suresh Sallay in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, during which the six allegedly made public statements criticising judicial proceedings.

The submission moves the case to the stage of formal filing of contempt charges before the appellate court. None of the six has been convicted of any offence.

Update: Court of Appeal takes up the complaint and directs the Registrar, September 9

The Court of Appeal has taken up the referred complaint and directed that further action be taken on it, NewsFirst reported on Wednesday evening. This is the first time the appellate court itself has acted on the matter, five weeks after the Fort Magistrate referred it and a fortnight after the reports were filed.

The complaint was heard by a bench comprising the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya, sitting with Justice Priyantha Fernando. Having considered the facts presented, the bench instructed the Registrar of the Court to proceed with the necessary steps in relation to the complaint.

NewsFirst adds a procedural detail absent from the earlier stages: the proceedings before the Court of Appeal were initiated acting on a request by the Criminal Investigation Department. The six named remain the same throughout — Weerawansa, Gammanpila, Jayaweera, Sugeeshwara Bandara, Asanka Navaratne and Mahinda Pathirana.

What this stage means

A direction to the Registrar is an administrative step, not a finding. It sets the court’s own machinery in motion — issuing notice and listing the matter — rather than determining whether contempt occurred. None of the six has been convicted of any offence, and no report indicates that any of them has yet been called upon to answer a charge or given a date to appear.

One of the six was in a different dock the same day

Sugeeshwara Bandara, named in this contempt referral, appeared before the Colombo Fort Magistrate on the same Wednesday in an unrelated matter and was further remanded until September 23 in the Central Crimes Investigation Bureau’s double-salary investigation. He has been in custody since 18 June. Neither outlet connects the two proceedings, and no report addresses how his remand affects his participation in the contempt case.

The magistrate in that case, Pasan Amarasena, is the same magistrate who made the August 5 referral order in this one.

Not reported

NewsFirst does not give a date for the next listing, say what steps the Registrar was directed to take, or state whether any of the six was present or represented. It does not say when the CID made its request, why the matter took five weeks to reach the appellate court after referral, or what the maximum penalty is under the Contempt of a Court, Tribunal or Institution Act, No. 8 of 2024. No other verified Sri Lankan outlet had carried the hearing; Ada Derana was unreachable, returning a server-side block across the whole domain.

Update: a three-judge bench is constituted, September 15

The Court of Appeal has appointed a three-judge bench to hear and determine the complaint, NewsFirst reported on Tuesday.

The matter was taken up before President of the Court of Appeal Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya sitting with Justice Priyantha Fernando — the same two-judge bench that directed the Registrar on 9 September. Justice Abeysuriya announced during the proceedings that a three-member bench would be constituted, and named it: Justice Abeysuriya himself, Justice Chamath Morais and Justice Adithya Patabendige.

This answers the question left open at the Registrar stage. A named bench, fixed for hearing and determination, is the point at which the referral stops being administrative and becomes a listed proceeding.

The referral, as the Court of Appeal now states it

NewsFirst’s account of the underlying complaint matches the record across all earlier stages, with one identification not previously carried here: Sugeeshwara Bandara is described as former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s private secretary. The six remain Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila, MP Dilith Jayaweera, Sugeeshwara Bandara, Asanka Navaratne and academic Mahinda Pathirana.

The outlet confirms the chain: the Criminal Investigation Department presented the complaint; Colombo Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena determined the six had allegedly committed contempt and referred the matter to the Court of Appeal under the Contempt of a Court, Tribunal or Institution Act, No. 8 of 2024. The allegations arise from statements said to have been made during the July satyagraha against the arrest of former State Intelligence Service director Suresh Salley.

None of the six has been convicted of any offence, and no finding of contempt has been made.

What is still not reported

NewsFirst gives no date for the first hearing before the new bench, does not say whether any of the six was present or represented, and does not state what penalty the 2024 Act carries. It does not address Dilith Jayaweera’s writ application challenging the referral, which the Court of Appeal was due to take up on 14 September — a day before this order — and no report says how it interacts with the bench now appointed. Update (18 September): that application has since been heard by a three-judge bench led by Court of Appeal President Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya, which has reserved its order for 30 September. No report says whether the contempt proceeding is stayed in the meantime. Nor does it address how Sugeeshwara Bandara, in remand custody on a separate matter until 23 September, is to participate.

Ada Derana’s site returned a CloudFront block across the whole domain and could not be checked; no other verified newsroom had filed on the order at the time of writing.

Sources