Nagananda Kodituwakku

On 13 February 1986, Kodituwakku was remanded with the charge of accepting a bribe, an allegation later found to be false. During his time on remand he received intel of a threat to his life and at his own request, he was transferred to solitary confinement alongside prisoners on death row in Walikada Prison for a period of 14 days. After three years of arrest and interdiction, Kodituwakku fought his case with no legal representation. On 27 November 1992, the allegations were proven to be unfounded. Kodituwakku was finally exonerated and reinstated within the Special Investigations and Intelligence Unit (SIIU) of the Customs Administration on 28 May 1993, seven years after the bribery allegations and arrest.[8]

During his interdiction following the bribery allegations in 1986, Kodituwakku assisted a fellow officer to catch a smuggler in 1991 and he was handed a charge sheet for providing 'unauthorized support'. However, in August 1993, he was exonerated for these charges following an inquiry.[9]

In November 1993, he filed a case against an importer for falsely declaring motor valuations in the reports submitted to the Sri Lankan customs, a revenue fraud worth several Rs million. The case received political pressure from the then president, Dingiri Banda Wijetunga, and orders from the Director General of Customs to stop the proceeding of the case. Yet Kodituwakku pursued the case and went on to arrest the importer in question. However, in December 1993, he was not allowed to charge the suspect and he was removed from the SIIU to the Policy Planning Division with immediate effect, and the suspect was set free. He was again indicted in December 1993. Later in July 1994 the then Director General of Customs declared by the means of an affidavit to the Supreme Court that he'd been pressured by the then president to dismiss Kodituwakku from office.

During his second interdiction, in February 1995, a team of customs officers led by Anura Weerawansa, the individual found guilty of murdering customs officer Sujith Prasanna Perera,[10] raided Kodituwakku's house under the pretext of searching for prohibited goods. He was produced before court with a criminal charge on the allegation that some stolen government property was found in his possession. This charge was later withdrawn by the Attorney General on the basis that it was a malicious prosecution and Kodituwakku was exonerated by a magistrates order due to no incriminating material found through the conducted search.[9]

Within the same interdiction, in March 1994 a second inquiry was launched into a charge that Kodituwakku had already been exonerated for in 1992 (assisting a fellow customs officer) and on 17 October 1994 he was dismissed from public service. He challenged this dismissal in the Court of Appeal, only for the court to uphold the findings of the second inquiry and dismiss his case. Kodituwakku then challenged this decision in the Supreme Court, where the court reviewed the dismissal and overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal in April 1998.[9] Kodituwakku was reinstated with the position of Head of the Revenue Task Force.[11]

Kodituwakku's departure from the customs administration stems from a case involving four duty-free car permits illegally sold by a hotel to a private company and the then cabinet minister, Reggie Ranatunga's family. The private company admitted to the fraudulent activity and paid the customs fine imposed on them. The Ranatunga family refused to surrender the imported car and pressured the Deputy Director General of Customs to order Kodituwakku to stop the investigation. President Chandrika Kumaratunga also intervened and pressured the Director General to cease the case.[12] Kodituwakku charged all parties involved in the illegal transaction; the director of the hotel, the private company and the daughter-in-law of Reggie Ranatunga. Following the case, Kodituwakku was subjected to multiple death threats for the public humiliation made to the Ranatunga family.[9] Kodituwakku left the country on September 21, 2001.[13][14]

The 18th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution removed the two-term restriction for presidency in Sri Lanka, however there was no clause for this to be applied retrospectively.[16] Therefore, in the light of the then president, Mahinda Rajapakse, contesting presidency for the third time, Kodituwakku filed this Writ Application at the Registry of the Court of Appeal in December 2014. This submission was reported to be missing until there was a significant challenge by the opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena. The significant challenge coincided with the missing case to be listed for support on 2 January 2015[17] during the Sri Lanka court vacation - a vacation system that has also been challenged by Kodituwakku.[18] With the imminent defeat of Rajapakse and requests made by concerned citizens, Kodituwakku withdrew the case as the proceeding would have blocked the Presidential Elections and given Rajapakse a further period of time due to the nature of the 2015 Sri Lankan Presidential Election.[16]

The 19th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution has reinstated the two-term limit for any president holding office.[19]

On 11 December 2014, Kodituwakku made his first formal complaint to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) regarding the sale of tax-free permits by MPs in the open market and requested an investigation into the matter, however the request was refused.[20][21] These are permits given to MPs and other public sector workers for their office use and upon sale of the vehicle they are subjected to pay all taxes and levies, however it was found that the permits alone were being sold with some permits fetching upwards of Rs. 25 million.[22] In the 2016 budget, Ravi Karunanayake, the then finance minister admitted that the permit scheme was 'politicised' and 'misused' and claimed that the government had lost Rs. 147 billion in unpaid levies as a direct result of it.[23]

In March 2017, the Attorney General informed the Supreme Court the CIABOC has launched an investigation into the abuse of the tax-free permit scheme.[24] Using the Right to Information Act, Kodituwakku published the 100 MPs who'd sold their vehicle permits to private entities or individuals.[25]

The 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings resulted in the deaths of 259 people following a series of coordinated terrorist suicide bombings. It was later revealed that intelligence had been passed over to the Sri Lankan government and that government leaders failed to act upon it.[26] On 28 April 2019, Kodituwakku stated that the negligence is in violation of the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code and has filed a Fundamental Rights petition directing the Attorney General to institute criminal action against the country's senior political, civil and security officials, including Maithripala Sirisena, Mahinda Rajapakse and Ranil Wickremasinghe,[27] for their alleged negligence over the Easter Sunday bombings.[28][29]

Kodituwakku filed a petition in the court of appeal seeking an order to compel the Director General of Customs to conduct a formal inquiry into Prestige Automobiles for a Rs 16 billion government tax revenue fraud through the importation of 1,675 units of high-value BMW motor cars during the period between March 2011 to October 2014.[30][31] The Director General at the time, Chulananda Perera, settled the case quickly and issued a Rs 100,000 fine for each car, a total fine of Rs 167,500,000 - roughly 1% of the total amount defrauded. However, Chulananda's successor, Sarojini Charles has rescinded Chulananda's order and launched a fresh inquiry.[32] The outcome of the case is still pending in court.

In 2015, the Center for Environmental Justice requested the Court to issue an order to remove illegal structures built on the protected Wilpattu Forest Reserve. However, these illegal structures were depicted as a resettlement area for people who were displaced by war and it was argued that the Wilpattu Forest Reserve was located in the Puttalam district, but the resettlement was carried out in a forest area in the Mannar district. It was also claimed that the resettlement area was once inhabited and since its inhabitants left the area a number of years ago the forest had consumed the area.[33]

A petition was filed by Kodituwakku and environmentalist, Malinda Seneviratne on 22 March 2019 against the unauthorised construction and the deforestation to Wilpattu National Park.[34] Kodituwakku informed the court that Minister Rishad Bathiudeen had been continuously clearing the forest reserve and pleaded for an urgent hearing. The Court of Appeal upheld the request and allowed the petition to be taken up on 28 June 2019.[35]

Following a customs order to release a detained shipment of 24 containers of palm oil (400 tonnes) in July 2018, Kodituwakku submitted his own Writ Application to the Court of Appeal after his client decides to withdraw from the case.[36] He stated there was irrefutable evidence that the free fatty acids levels of the contents would be injurious to public health. Kodituwakku has also filed a serious contempt charge against the importer Sena Mills (Pvt) Ltd for deceiving the Court with falsified information.[37]