Gampaha Magistrate Bandula Gunaratne has ruled that the Inspector General of Police (IGP) committed contempt of court by failing to carry out court orders, and has sent the file to the President of the Court of Appeal so that proceedings can be started against the IGP.
The magistrate also directed the court registrar to forward two case files, numbers 1743 and 1744, to the Court of Appeal. Both were filed by officers of the Gampaha Anti-Corruption Unit against a man accused of possessing narcotics.
The magistrate said the IGP appeared to be trying to deceive the court. When the case was called on Wednesday, lawyers from the Police Legal Division presented a set of guidelines issued on 19 October by the Deputy Inspector General in charge of the Western Province North to officers in the Gampaha, Kelaniya and Negombo police divisions.
After reading the guidelines, the magistrate said in open court: “This is being done to deceive me.” He said he had ordered a circular covering every police officer in the country, and that separate instructions for one province did not meet that order.
The police had been given time to issue the circular after earlier hearings. The case had been called twice before without the matter being completed, with police officers citing various reasons.
Background
The two cases were filed against Chamara Chathuranga Marasinghe of Devalapola, Makandana, Gampaha. Police alleged that on or about 6 May 2026 he was in possession of 130 milligrams of ice and 500 milligrams of heroin at the Asgiriya junction in Gampaha. The officer in charge of the unit, Police Inspector Thennakoon, filed the case.
When the first case was called, Marasinghe pleaded guilty and was fined. A second case against him was called minutes later. The magistrate noted that two cases had been filed against one person on the same date, and that 16 other people had been arrested in the same raid. He earlier ruled the cases had been filed in a vexatious manner and ordered three Gampaha Anti-Corruption Unit officers and the Police Department to pay Rs. 200,000 in compensation.
The magistrate also said the Government Analyst’s reports showed far smaller quantities of drugs than police had stated. He said police appeared to use Section 54 of the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance to limit the court’s discretion, and that the result was to damage the court’s trust in police officers. He ordered Rs. 100,000 in compensation, Rs. 50,000 for each case, to be paid from the police reward fund, which receives a large share of fines collected under the drugs law.
He said officers who had been told to raise the number of monthly cases should be held responsible, and that the junior officers involved should not face disciplinary action. Under the Constitution, the Court of Appeal has the power to punish contempt of lower courts.
What it means
The order concerns how police bring drug cases to court. The magistrate said that an instruction to file more cases each month than the month before was not a sound measure of police efficiency, and that a rise in cases in an area did not by itself show that the area had a worse drug problem.
The magistrate said police should raid in order to prove cases against the people arrested, with evidence given in court. The Court of Appeal will now consider the file sent by the magistrate.
