Members of the Joint Opposition (JO) together with a number of Buddhist monks, have begun a ‘pindapatha’ (alms begging) to collect funds to pay off the fines imposed on former President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga and former Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) Director General Anusha Palpita.

On September 7 the Colombo High Court found Lalith Weeratunga and Anusha Palpita guilty in the ‘sil redi’ distribution case in which Rs. 600 million belonging to the TRC was misappropriated and sentenced the two men to three years Rigorous Imprisonment (RI), a fine of Rs. 2 million each and further fine of Rs. 50 million to be paid to the TRC.

In the wake of the High Court ruling, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa came out strongly on behalf of the two men saying it was he that had given the order to distribute the ‘sil redi’ and they had been only following orders.

Cabinet Co-spokesperson Dr. Rajitha Seneratne said the former President could be prosecuted for the comments he made in support of the two disgraced men as the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in April 28, 2015, removed the immunity afforded to the executive.