Gampaha Magistrate Bandula Gunarathna has referred the case file of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to the President of the Court of Appeal to institute contempt of court proceedings, ruling that the IGP has willfully disregarded judicial orders and attempted to mislead the judiciary.
The developments unfolded during court proceedings where the Magistrate addressed a deeply flawed drug case involving a resident of Delwepola, Makandana, named Chamara Chaturanga Marasinghe. The Gampaha Anti-Corruption Unit had previously filed two separate fabricated case files (No. 1743 and 1744) accusing the individual of possessing 130 milligrams of “Ice” and 500 milligrams of heroin at the Asgiriya junction on or around 6 May 2026.
When the case was taken up, it was revealed that the individual had been subjected to multiple simultaneous charges stemming from the same incident, while other suspects arrested during the same raid faced no such treatment. When the court questioned the legality of these oppressive filings under Section 17(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the relevant police officers failed to appear. Subsequently, a police sergeant attempted to withdraw one case while pressing forward with the other, admitting that charges had been framed incorrectly because 16 other individuals had been arrested on the same day.
The Magistrate rejected the police request, emphasizing that arrests and charges must be backed by substantive evidence rather than superficial targets. Pointing to Government Analyst reports, the Magistrate highlighted a systemic departmental flaw where quantities of narcotics recorded by police vastly exceed what is actually present in the evidence, with numerous cases containing negligible amounts or no narcotics whatsoever.
The court launched a scathing critique of the police department’s internal performance metrics, noting that higher-ups constantly pressure lower-tier officers to increase monthly case numbers. The Magistrate warned that if policing continues on the premise that next month’s tally must always surpass the last, the country will literally run out of a population to charge within five years. Furthermore, true efficiency should result in a decrease in crime and court cases, meaning soaring local case numbers only reflect the incompetence of the police division in charge. The court added that invoking Section 54 of the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance simply to restrict judicial discretion ultimately erodes public trust in law enforcement.
Consequently, the Magistrate ordered the three officers involved—OIC Inspector Tennakoon, Police Sergeant Seneviratne, and Constable Dilshan—to personally pay 25,000 rupees each in compensation to the victim. Additionally, the Police Department was ordered to pay 100,000 rupees (50,000 rupees per fabricated case) out of the Police Reward Fund, mirroring the fund used to collect fines under dangerous drug laws. The Magistrate asserted that these officers should face no internal disciplinary action unless the superior officers who ordered these arbitrary raids are held equally accountable.
To prevent similar abuses against innocent citizens, the Magistrate had previously ordered the IGP to issue a comprehensive, island-wide circular instructing police officers to halt the practice of filing baseless cases. Although multiple court dates were granted to fulfill this directive, when the case was called on 21 October 2026, Senior Inspector Pranith Jayawardena and Inspector Kaushika Perera of the Police Legal Division appeared in court and presented a limited set of guidelines issued solely by the Deputy Inspector General for the Western Province North on 19 October 2026, rather than a national directive.
Furious at the submission, the Magistrate openly declared in court, “This is an attempt to hoodwink me.” In a sharp exchange with the police legal representatives, the Magistrate criticized the piecemeal approach, stating that issuing regional directives instead of a unified national circular is like “giving a donkey a dog’s job” and asked whether separate instructions would be issued every time a similar incident occurred in another province. Observing that the police treat court orders with casual disregard—waiting until witnesses forget facts and dragging out proceedings until parties lose interest—the Magistrate remarked that even if the matter were reported to the Police Commission, it would yield no results.
Concluding that nearly five months of leeway had been squandered and that the failure to issue the mandated circular constituted contempt of court, the Magistrate formally ordered the case file to be transmitted to the President of the Court of Appeal. In addition, the court registrar was instructed to forward the two fabricated case files (1743 and 1744) to the appellate court for further action. (Courtesy: BBC Sinhala)
