PERUMBADA PEDIGE AJITH SANATH KUMARA & OTHERS VS. THE HON. ATTORNEY-GENERAL

• Jurisdiction: Sri Lanka
• Case Number: 2013SCOA137C2008Y
• Citation: 2013SCOA137C2008Y
• Date: 18 September 2013
• Court: Court of Appeal (Sri Lanka)
• Type of Document: Unreported judgment

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Perumbada Pedige Ajith Sanath Kumara & others

Vs.

The Hon. Attorney-General

C.A.Appeal No. 137/08

High Court Gampaha No. 96/99

1. Perumbada Pedige Ajith Sanath Kumara, (dead)

2. Perumbada Pedige Nimalsiri,

3. Nuwarapaksha Pedige Thilakarathna,

Accused-Appellants.

VS.

The Hon. Attorney-General,
Attorney-General's Department,
Colombo-12.

Respondent

Before: Sisira J .de Abrew, J &
P.W.D.C. Jayathilaka, J

Counsel : Indika Mallawarachchi for the 1st Accused-Appellant.
Neranjan Jayasinghe for the 2nd Accused-appellant.
Ms. Haripriya Jayasundera DSG for the Respondents.

Argued and Decided on : 18.09.2013 and 20.09.2013

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Sisira J. de Abrew, J

Heard counsel for both parties in support of their respective cases. The three accused appellants in this case were convicted of the murder of a man named Ilandari Pedige Nimal Ranasinghe and were sentenced to death. Being aggrieved by the said conviction and the sentence the accused-appellants have appealed to this Court.

The learned DSG appearing for the Attorney-General submits that she cannot support the conviction in view of the contradictory nature of the prosecution evidence and also considering the fact that the witness Guneratne is an unreliable witness.

The facts of this case may be briefly summarized as follows. On the day of the incident Gunaratne went to a nearby well to have a bath. The time was 9.30 p.m. When he was waiting near the well ,he saw a flash of a troch and later saw the 3rd accused attacking the person who carried a torch with a club. He does not say that the person who was attacked was the deceased person in this case. litter later, the 1st and the 2nd accused-appellants came to this place flashing a troch and all three of them dragged the person who was attacked away from the scene. Nowhere in his evidence has he said that he identified the person who was attacked as the deceased person in this case. But the learned trial judge has concluded that the

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1st, 2nd and 3rd accused-appellants have attacked the deceased person. The learned Deputy Solicitor General too submits that there is no evidence to reach such a conclusion. Therefore the prosecution has failed to prove that the accused-persons in this case had attacked the deceased person. On this ground itself the case for the prosecution should collapse. The most important question that must be decided in this case is whether the witness Gunaratne who claimed to be an eye witness has seen the incident. According to Guneratne he went to a nearby well around 9.30 p.m to have a bath. He admits that he has never gone to this well before. According to Guneratne three was moonlight on...