Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka: A Two-Judge Bench comprising of Deepali Wijesundera, and Achala Wengappuli, JJ. affirmed the conviction of appellant alleged under Section 54A(b) and (d) of the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance as amended, for illegally trafficking and possessing 4.29 grams of heroin.
Facts of the case were such that the appellant was found guilty for both the abovementioned offences and was punished with imprisonment of life by Colombo High Court. Aggrieved by the same appellant filed this appeal with a prayer to set aside the above conviction. It was contended by the appellant that trial court did not properly consider his statement made from the dock. The main contention being that there were inconsistencies between the two prosecution witnesses on the fact of where and when exactly the notes of investigations were made. It was submitted that the notes of the investigation were pasted in the information book after 11 days of the date of detection. Pieces of evidence for the same were shown suggesting both the investigating officer’s notes of investigations were made on the same day of the detection and it was only pasting it on information book which was delayed.
Court of Appeal observed that just because notes were pasted belatedly on information book does not render the notes prepared to be unreliable. With respect to the statement made by the appellant from the dock, the trial court had rejected his statement which the Court of Appeal found to be correctly rejected. Court finding all the contentions of the appellant to be baseless dismissed this appeal. [Samban Chandrasekeran v. Attorney General, C.A.No.263 of 2017, decided on 05-10-2018]
