SC postpones Pujitha, Hemasiri appeal judgements filed by AG

The Supreme Court yesterday (8) postponed the pronouncement of its judgement on two appeal petitions filed by the Attorney General against the High Court judgement which acquitted former Inspector General Pujitha Jayasundara and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando from the charges against the failure to prevent the Easter Sunday terror attacks despite receiving intelligence information.

The judgement was postponed by a five-member Supreme Court Bench after considering the arguments presented by the lawyers regarding the petitions for many days.

The parties were directed to file written submissions on the petitions within three weeks.

These appeal petitions were called before the five-member Supreme Court Bench comprising Preethi Padman Surasena, Yasantha Kodagoda, Kumuduni Wickramasinghe, Mahinda Samayawardena and Arjuna Obeysekera.

Senior Additional Solicitor General Priyantha Nawana presented facts at length on behalf of the petitioner Attorney General. He mentioned that closing the case without calling the defence evidence by the High Court was against the law. According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, it is necessary to call witnesses from the prosecution as well as the defence in a trial. Therefore, he pointed out that the decision taken by the High Court Judge to acquit the accused without summoning the evidence of the defence is flawed.

Also, the Senior Additional Solicitor General argued that the relevant High Court judgement contained some contradictory facts. He also pointed out that the first half of the judgement said that when there was information that such an attack might take place, it was possible to notify all the police stations. However, in the latter half of the judgement, it was stated that a person had the ability to carry out such an attack in a short period of time. Therefore, he argued that the judges of the High Court had reached contradictory conclusions regarding the same matter.

He concluded his presentation by urging the court to quash the High Court judgement as it is flawed. In relation to these petitions, their lawyers presented lengthy arguments on behalf of the former Defense Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and the former Inspector General Pujitha Jayasundara, who are named as defendant one.

The hearing of the petition was concluded with the reconsiderations of the Attorney General. After considering all the facts, the five-judge bench decided to postpone the decision regarding this petition.

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