( January 1, 2014 - Colombo - Sri Lanka Guardian) The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is to lodge a complaint against the Chief of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), today, by submitting a petition to the very Commission of which he is the head.
JVP Propaganda Secretary, Vijitha Herath, said the petition includes allegations of bribery and corruption committed by the CIABOC Chairman, Jagath Balapatabendi, in the past six years, from the time he was a Judge of the Supreme Court until the present time in his capacity as the Chairman of CIABOC.
Balapatabendi had come under severe criticism on several occasions in Parliament recently, for allegedly suppressing and covering up charges of bribery and corruption that had been lodged against government politicians and their stooges.
UNP Colombo District Parliamentarian, Sujeewa Senasinghe, during the third reading debate of the 2014 Budget, had pointed out in Parliament how the Bribery Chief had allegedly aided and abetted in the arrest of the former Director (Preventive) of Sri Lanka Customs for an alleged charge of bribery early this year, as a personal favour to one of his friends, the owner of Vehicle Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., Harsha de Silva.
Senasinghe said that though an arrest has to be made when the bribe was being accepted, in the case of the former Customs Preventive Director, Ranjan Kanagasabai, the Bribery officials were not present at the time the bribe was purported to have been given, to positively conclude whether the bribe was accepted or not. Many attempts to contact CIABOC Chairman Balapatabendi for a comment, porved futile.
Full text of the petition is follows;
