The majority of the Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar has ruled that the charges made under the Public Property Act cannot be maintained in the second bond case filed against 11 accused including former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake.

The suspects are accused of criminal breach of trust with regard to the issuance of bonds valued at Rs. 36.98 billion during Central Bank’s 2016 bond auction.

Accordingly, the accused have been released from only these relevant charges, the judge bench ruled.

The case was called before High Court Judges Damith Thotawatta, Manjula Thilakaratna, and Mohamed Irshadeen today (March 04) to deliver its decision on the preliminary objections raised by the defendants stating the case filed by the Attorney General against the defendants could not be continued.

This majority decision was then been delivered by Justices Damith Thotawatta and Manjula Thilakaratna, while stating that under Section 7 of the Public Property Act, only natural persons can be charged.

However, Justice Damith Thotawatta said that as Perpetual Treasuries Limited, the defendant in the case, was not a natural person it could not be charged under the Public Property Act.

He therefor stated that the charges filed under the Public Property Act against the 11 defendants including former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, former Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran, PTL Directors Geoffrey Aloysius, Arjun Aloysius, Kasun Palisena and others cannot be maintained.