A Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna Pradeshiya Sabha member has been arrested in Madampe, Chilaw, over the use of the same vehicle number plate on two motorcycles, NewsFirst reported on Saturday.
Police said the suspect, a resident of the Suduwella area in Madampe, was due to be produced before the Chilaw Magistrate’s Court the same day.
The report does not name the councillor or say which Pradeshiya Sabha he sits on.
The offence
Running one registration across two vehicles is not a paperwork slip. A duplicated plate means one of the two machines is effectively invisible to the systems that rely on registration — traffic enforcement, insurance, emissions testing and any camera-based detection — while appearing legitimate to anyone glancing at it.
It also leaves the registered owner of the genuine plate exposed to offences committed by the second vehicle.
Against a backdrop of plate enforcement
The arrest comes while the number plate system is already under strain. The Department of Motor Traffic said this week that the backlog in issuing plates would clear within six months, a shortage that has left many vehicles on the road without permanent registration for extended periods.
Police have separately run a crackdown on altered and unauthorised number plates, and new green plates for electric vehicles were introduced earlier this month. Neither report connects the Madampe case to those operations.
Not reported
NewsFirst does not name the suspect, his party position or his council. It does not say how the duplication was detected, whether either motorcycle was properly registered, under which statute he was arrested, whether the plate was forged or genuinely issued, or whether the vehicles were seized. There is no indication of the outcome of Saturday’s court appearance, and no response from the SLPP. The report was not carried by the Daily Mirror, Hiru News, Ada Derana, Colombo Gazette or the Island at the time of writing, leaving it single-sourced.
