The Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar has ordered that the Central Bank bond case against ten accused, including former Governor Arjuna Mahendran, be recalled on 28 January for a pre-trial conference.
The case was taken up on Monday, Hiru News reported. The bench comprised Judges Priyantha Liyanage, sitting as presiding judge, Bandara and Nuwan Dhammika Disanayake.
Mahendran, the first accused, was not present. Neither was the sixth accused. The court is proceeding in their absence.
Counsel for the second accused has filed preliminary objections, and the judges said a date would be fixed for preliminary submissions on those.
The charges
The Attorney General has indicted Mahendran, Arjun Aloysius and eight others on 23 counts, among them the allegation that a Treasury bond auction caused a loss of Rs. 688 million to the State.
That figure matches what this desk reported in September, when the case was last before the Trial-at-Bar.
Three things that have changed since September
The date has moved by nine weeks. In September the court fixed the pre-trial conference for 24 November. It is now set for 28 January. Hiru does not report why the November date was vacated, or whether anything was heard in the interval.
The bench is not the same. September’s panel was Priyantha Liyanage, Viraj Weerasuriya and Bandara. Weerasuriya’s seat is now held by Nuwan Dhammika Disanayake. Neither outlet explains the change.
The outlets disagree on the auction date. Hiru places the bond auction at the centre of the Rs. 688 million count on 2 February 2015. Our September report, following NewsFirst, gave 27 February 2015 — the date consistently attached to the first bond issuance in the documented record of the case. This desk has not restated Hiru’s date in the lede, and readers should treat 27 February 2015 as the better-supported one until a court filing settles it.
A note on the judge’s name: outlets render the second judge’s initials differently — “Thilakaratne Bandara”, “P. A. T. Bandara” and “T. A. T. Bandara” have all appeared on this and the related Trial-at-Bar bench. The surname is consistent; the initials are not, and nothing turns on them here.
Why Mahendran’s absence matters
A pre-trial conference narrows issues before trial. Setting one for late January places the next substantive step almost three months away, in a prosecution that has already run for years.
Mahendran’s non-appearance is the structural obstacle rather than a scheduling one. He has remained outside Sri Lanka throughout, and the state’s difficulty in producing him has been documented repeatedly — as recently as late August, the government was still confronting a legal barrier to his extradition. The Supreme Court has separately addressed the prosecution of Mahendran and former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake in the same matter.
Sourcing and what is not reported
This account rests on a single verified newsroom. The Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing, checked while this was written, had not carried Monday’s hearing, and no other verified outlet this desk could reach had filed on it. Searches for the January date returned only material from the 2022 stage of the case, which is a separate set of proceedings and has not been used here. Ada Derana’s site continues to return a CloudFront block on every route.
Hiru does not name the sixth accused, give a reason for either absence, itemise the 23 counts beyond the Rs. 688 million allegation, or state the total quantum alleged across all of them. It does not say what the preliminary objections argue.