Colombo Additional Magistrate Nishantha Peiris will announce his decision at 1.00 p.m. on the bail plea of Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera, who was arrested and remanded for allegedly keeping an elephant without a valid license.

Dhammaloka Thera's lawyers made their submissions this morning and urged for bail on several special grounds.

They informed court that Dhammaloka Thera wants to be involved with the organization of the funeral of the Asgiriya Mahanayake and cannot attend to these duties under prison custody. Furthermore, since he was a respected Dhamma preacher, he is scheduled to attend to a number of programs, he pointed out. Both he and the organizers of various Buddhist sermon and discussion programs are in difficulties when he is in prison custody, it was argued.

Furthermore, it was argued that the elephant calf could not be described as belonging to Dhammaloka Thera merely because it was in the temple. It was also pointed out that he had not hidden the elephant in the temple.

The court was also told that the Thera did not earn money from the elephant calf. It was given for different functions free of charge, the lawyers also pointed out.

They argued that no one were victimized by the fact that the elephant calf was in the temple.

In response, the State Counsel agreed on the first two points but opposed to the other points.

He submitted that the argument that the elephant did not belong to the Thera could not be accepted. Furthermore, since elephants were public property, the government and the people were victimized by the unregistered ownership of the elephant, the State Counsel said.