General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Communist Party D.E.W. Gunasekara says that the appointing of a Commission of Inquiry by the President to probe the bond scam has proven to be a correct decision although some had condemned it back then. 

“In that way we have to be grateful to the President for appointing the commission,” he said. 

He stated that the judge panel toiled for 10 months continuously and not only did they hear the case they also investigated, but they did not have judicial powers. 

“We asked for a commission which had judicial powers. The commission should have powers to met out punishment. Like the Thalgodapitiya Commission. But the President appointed a different commission,” he told reporters in Colombo. 

“If this commission had been given true judicial power under the Constitution, then today Ravi Karunanayake and the others would already be sentenced to jail.” 

However, he said that they are satisfied that such a commission was appointed in the country for the first time in 59 years, the last time being in 1959. “On that side it is important.”

“Since the late S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike took a decision to appoint a commission and sack three ministers from his Cabinet, the party and politics, no other head of state or leader of government had taken such a decision until now,” the former minister said.