Former Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga and former Director General of the TRC Anusha Palpita, who were sentenced over the ‘Sil Cloth’ case, have been granted conditional bail by the Colombo High Court.
They were ordered released on a cash bail of Rs 100,000 each and three personal bails of Rs 1 million each, when the bail application filed by their attorneys was taken up for hearing at the High Court today (20).
Lalith Weeratunga and Anusha Palpita, who were produced before the court by prison authorities today, were also ordered to hand over their passports to the court.
On September 07, Weeratunga and Palpita were found guilty by the Colombo High Court in the ‘Sil Cloth’ case and each sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment.
They were also fined Rs 2 million each and ordered to pay Rs 50 million each to the TRC as compensation.
Weeratunga and Palpita were charged in a case filed alleging that the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) had spent Rs.600 million to distribute ‘Sil Cloth’ to the people as part of the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election campaign in 2015.
However, on September 11 attorneys representing the former Presidential Secretary and former TRC Director General filed a petition against the verdict delivered by the Colombo High Court.
The lawyers filed the petition with the Court of Appeal, seeking a court order annulling the verdict delivered by the High Court.
The Colombo High Court had informed the Attorney General’s Department to make submissions today (20), for the bail application submitted by Lalith Weeratunga and Anusha Palpita.
