Senior Additional Solicitor General Kapila Waidyaratne was appointed the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence by President Maithripala Sirisena, on Tuesday (04)

Before his appointment as the new Defence Ministry Secretary replacing Karunasena Hettiarachchi, Waidyaratne served as a Senior Additional Solicitor General at the Attorney General's Department. 

He was one of the prime candidates for the post of Attorney General, last year. The Constitutional Council, however, decided to appoint Jayantha Jayasuriya as the Attorney General. 

A past student of St. Thomas' College, Colombo, Waidyaratne was appointed a President's Counsel in 2015. 

He received his BA and MA degrees from the University of Colombo. His two degrees were on Economics and International Relations. 

He is professionally qualified as an Attorney at Law at the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka (1982) and a Solicitor in UK and Wales (1990).

He has served at the Attorney General's Department for nearly 35 years. He joined as an Acting State Counsel in 1983 and was promoted as a Senior State Counsel in 1996. He then became a Deputy Solicitor General in 2005 and rose to the post of an Additional Solicitor General in 2013.

Waidyaratne also served as a Trial Attorney at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, from 1998 to 2003. 

He also served as the Chief Examiner at the Sri Lanka Law College and a visiting lecturer of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies. He is a resource person for UN-ILO and IOM Sri Lanka.

Waidyaratne is a life member of the Sri Lanka Bar Association, the Medico-Legal Society of Sri Lanka and a member of the Asia Crime Prevention Foundation.