News

The Court of Appeal on Thursday (9) ordered former Minister Johnston Fernando to surrender to the Magistrate’s Court before 8 PM..

The Court of Appeal ordered the CID not to execute the warrant issued by the Fort Magistrate for Fernando’s arrest, until that time.

The Court of Appeal also directed the Fort Magistrate not to issue any order against Johnston Fernando until the Court of Appeal gives its final verdict on the writ petition filed by Johnston Fernando.

Colombo Municipal Councilor Mahinda Kahandagama was arrested by Sri Lanka Police on Thursday (2).

He surrendered to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) today.

The Ministry of Justice has decided to suspend the Fiscal Officer attached to the Commercial High Court in Colombo regarding his conduct on serving an court order on grounding the Russia Aeroflot flight.

The Fiscal Officer is charged with abusing the court process in enforcing the order issued by the Commercial High Court to ground the A330 flight at the Bandaranaike International Airport.

In addition, the Justice Ministry had also informed the Chief Justice that is it appropriate the take action against the Attorney-at-Law who is also accused of his conduct over the same matter.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has taken steps to provide relief to those people who have been affected by the floods, the PM’s Office said in a statement.

Accordingly, a preliminary discussion has been held among the Prime Minister’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake and the District Secretaries of Kalutara, Gampaha and Galle.

During the discussions with the Ratnapura District Secretaries, the Prime Minister announced that the Treasury Operations Department has allocated funds to provide relief to the people affected by the floods.

PM Wickremesinghe has also instructed the Treasury to take steps to provide relief funds through District Secretaries.

Minister Prasanna Ranatunga has been sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment suspended for a period of five years by the Colombo High Court in the case filed against him over the Meethotamulla land dispute.

Meanwhile the minister was also imposed a fine of Rs. 25 million by the Colombo High Court, which laos ordered that failure to pay the fine carries an additional nine months imprisonment.

In addition, the court further ordered Minister Ranatunga to pay a compensation of Rs. 1 million to the accuser, a businessman, and declared that if he fails to pay the compensation, he will be sentenced to an additional three months imprisonment.

Meanwhile two other accused in the case including the minister’s wife Morin Ranatunga and another individual were acquitted from the case by the court.

The Attorney General had filed an indictment against the former Western Province Chief Minister before the Colombo High Court in May 2016, accusing him of threatening a businessman in connection with the transactions of a land in Meethotamulla of 322 perches.

Ranatunga, who is the incumbent Minister of Urban Development and Housing, was accused of threatening a businessman named Gerard Mendis and demanding Rs. 64 million to evict unauthorized occupants of a land in the Meethotamulla area in Kolonnawa and to refill the land, during his tenure as Chief Minister.

The verdict in the case was delivered by Colombo High Court Judge Manjula Tillakaratne, today (06).

MPs Sanath Nishantha, Milan Jayatilleke and 11 others have been further remanded until June 08 by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court.

These suspects who were arrested in connection with the May 09 attacks on anti-government protesters at outside Temple Trees in Kollupitiya and ‘GotaGoGama’ at Galle Face Geen, were produced before the court today (June 01).

A Sri Lankan Court on Monday (6) suspended an order preventing an Aeroflot flight from leaving Sri Lanka.

The order was suspended after the Colombo Commercial High Court considered a motion filed by the Attorney General.

The motion was considered in the presences of Colombo Commercial High Court Judge Harsha Setunga on Monday (6).

The Airbus A330-343 operated by Russian state-owned airline Aeroflot was denied permission to fly to Moscow as scheduled on June 2nd amid a legal dispute with a leasing company. The flight had more than 200 passengers onboard.

Celestial Aviation Trading Limited, one of the largest plane-leasing firms, is seeking to confiscate the jet after Russia failed to return its property.

The European Union in February imposed a wide-array of economic sanctions on Russia, including banning the leasing of EU airplanes, after it invaded Ukraine.

The bloc’s sanctions demanded Russia return any aircraft leased from EU firms by the end of March.

Leasing companies have confiscated 78 planes operated by Russian airlines since the sanctions were imposed, though nearly all occurred within the first few days.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has demanded Sri Lanka resolve the situation, warning it could hurt bilateral relations.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) says that on year-on-year basis, CCPI-based headline inflation continuously increased to 39.1% in May 2022 from 29.8% in April 2022.

Food inflation increased to 57.4%, in May 2022 from 46.6% in April 2022, while Non-Food inflation increased to 30.6% in May 2022 from 22.0% in April 2022.

The monthly change of CCPI was recorded at 8.34% in May 2022 due to price increases observed in items of both Non-Food and Food categories which were 4.87% and 3.47%, respectively.

Accordingly, prices of items in the Non-Food category recorded increases mainly due to price increases observed in the Transport (Petrol, diesel, and bus fare), Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuel (LP gas and Materials for maintenance/reconstruction), Restaurant and Hotels and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (Car insurance) sub-categories.

Further, within the Food category, increases were observed in the prices of vegetables, fresh fish, rice, bread, dried fish, and dhal during the month.

Meanwhile, annual average inflation rose to 14.2% in May 2022 from 11.3% in April 2022.

The core inflation (Y-o-Y), which reflects the underlying inflation in the economy increased to 28.4% in May 2022 from 22.0% in April 2022, while annual average core inflation increased to 10.2% in May 2022 from 8.1% in April 2022.

Veteran actress Sumana Amarasinghe has passed away.

Close relatives stated that she passed away at the Sri Jayewardenepura Hospital last night (5) following to a heart attack.

Amarasinghe entered the film industry with the film Pipena Kumudu directed by Ruby de Mel. She acted in many films and won the Most Popular Actress award on several occasions, in addition to producing six films.

Close relatives mentioned that the date of the funeral of the late actress will be announced later.

The Supreme Court today decided to suspend the Presidential pardon granted to former Parliamentarian Duminda Silva.

Court also ordered a travel ban on Silva and called for his passport to be confiscated. Furthermore, the Court has also ordered the CID to arrest the former parliamentarian.

The order was issued after hearing two petitions that had been filed by former MP Hirunika Premachandra and her mother Swarna Premachandra challenging the presidential pardon granted to Silva.

The Colombo High Court sentenced Silva to life imprisonment in 2016, over the murder of former MP Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, the father of former MP Hirunika Premachandra.

Although Silva filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against the decision, the Court upheld the verdict on the murder conviction by the High Court.

However, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa later granted a special Presidential pardon to Silva on 24 June 2021.

The High Commission of India in Colombo Tweeted that it handed over 3.3 tonnes of medical supplies to Sri Lanka on Friday (3)

According to the Tweet, India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar was apprised in March of the shortages of medicines faced by the 1990 Suwa Seriya service, and hence the supplies have been handed over in order to help the vital lifeline run smoothly.

The Tweet goes on to say:

“This is part of over 370 million Rupees worth of medical aid delivered from India in the last two months. Happy to have supported the Service since its beginning with gifts of ambulances from India.”

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has issued an Extraordinary Gazette notification on institutions, scopes, and functions of Ministries.

42 state institutions including those connected to the Ministry of Defence will come under the purview of the President.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will oversee 57 bodies that come under the Ministries of Finance, Economic Stabilization and National Policies.

The Treasury, Inland Revenue Department and Sri Lanka Customs are among the state bodies that are under the purview of the Premier.