A five-judge Supreme Court bench on Monday set aside a Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar order that had held charges under the Public Property Act could not be maintained against the accused in the 2016 Central Bank bond issuance case, clearing the way for the criminal case to proceed against former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran, former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake and Perpetual Treasuries Limited, among others.
The ruling was delivered by Supreme Court Justice Mahinda Samayawardhena with the concurrence of Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena and Justices Shiran Gooneratne, Achala Wengappuli and Arjuna Obeyesekere. The Court held that Public Property Act charges could lawfully be maintained against the defendants — including Perpetual Treasuries — and directed that the case be expedited and heard without delay.
The Attorney General had appealed the Trial-at-Bar’s earlier determination after indictments naming Mahendran, Karunanayake and a group of co-accused. Monday’s order removes the principal procedural obstacle that had stalled the criminal prosecution at the indictment stage.
The Attorney General’s Department on Tuesday confirmed a new Trial-at-Bar will be appointed to recommence Public Property Act proceedings, with NewsFirst reporting that three new Trial-at-Bar panels are expected to be constituted and the case scheduled to be heard before one of them. The earlier Trial-at-Bar had halted the case in 2021 after upholding the defence’s preliminary objection that Perpetual Treasuries — as a company — could not be prosecuted under the Public Property Act, the same objection now reversed by the Supreme Court ruling.
The 2016 controversy — alleging large-scale financial irregularities tied to a Central Bank bond auction in March 2016 — remains one of Sri Lanka’s most-debated financial scandals and was a defining accountability issue of the 2015–19 Yahapalana administration. The framing has resurfaced this year as opposition figures including Prof. G.L. Peiris compare the unfolding coal procurement scandal to the bond fraud.
Monday’s clearance opens parallel accountability tracks already running at the Bribery Commission against former President Mahinda Rajapaksa over the SriLankan Airlines/Airbus deal and the SLTPB indictment against Basil Rajapaksa — three separate but politically linked criminal threads now active in the senior courts.
