28 February 2012 07:13 am
In the Bharatha Lakshman murder case, Counsel Ajith Pathirana appearing for the aggrieved stated that two months had passed since the order was given to arrest Duminda Silva but still no action had been taken to arrest him. When questioned about the delay, the CID stated in court that they need the Attorney General’s advice to proceed and that a document consisting of over 1,900 pages had been submitted to the Attorney General. The Additional Magistrate Prasanna Alwis said that the Attorney General’s advice is not needed to carry out court orders.
The Magistrate today said according to powers vested in the court it can only issue orders and not investigate or carry them out. Additional magistrate Prasanna De Alwis made this comment when the counsel for the aggrieved party in the Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra case raised an issue that the CID had not arrested MP Duminda Silva although two months had passed since the arrest order was issued.
Counsel Ajith Pathirana who watched the interest of the family of Bharatha Lackshman Premachandra made the submissions during the inquiry into the killing yesterday.He charged the CID instead of making the arrest is behaving in a lackadaisical manner and had told court that extracts of the case had been sent to the Attorney General for his instructions and had failed to arrest Duminda Silva.
The counsel contended that the CID need not wait for the Attorney General’s instructions to carry out court orders.The CID responded saying the investigation report comprising some 2900 pages was sent to the Attorney General and he needed time to peruse it.The JMO’s report on the alleged assault made on the suspect Premalal was filed before court by the Prison Authorities.
President’s Counsel Hemantha Warnakulasuriya watching the interest of Duminda Silva’s father moved to issue him certified copies of the court documents.
The magistrate ordered the Registrar to issue them to the Counsel by today and remanded the 16 suspects till March 13.