Court of Appeal of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka: A Division Bench of K.K. Wickremasinghe and Devika Abeyratne, JJ., allowed a Revision Application which was filed in order to set aside the order of the High Court Judge of Kandy and impose an appropriate sentence.
The prosecutrix was aged 12 years at the time of the commission of the alleged offence committed by her biological father and he was booked under two charges first one being Section 364 (3) of the Penal Code amended by Act no. 22 of 1995 and secondly under Section 365 B (2) b of the Penal Code amended by Act No. 22 of 1995. When the charges were being read out the accused-respondent had pleaded not guilty and later before the conclusion of evidence he had pleaded guilty to both charges. Accordingly, the High court had imposed 1-year rigorous imprisonment suspended for 20 years and a fine of Rs 10,000 for both the charges each. He was also ordered to give Rs 2,00,000 to the prosecutrix as compensation.
The Counsel for the petitioner, Chathuri Wijesuriya had submitted various grounds as exceptional circumstances which warranted exercising revisionary jurisdiction the Court which included Lawful sentence to be imposed as per the amended Penal Code, Applicability of SC Appeal No. 17 of 2013 and factors to be considered while determining a sentence.
The Court relied on a number of landmark Judgments as of The Attorney General v. H.N. de Silva, 57 NLR 121; Attorney General v. Jinak Sri Uluwaduge, [1995] 1 Sri LR 157; The Attorney General v. Mendis, [1995] 1 Sri LR 138 and concluded that the accused-respondent should have been given deterrent punishment. The Court while allowing the Revision Application stated that the Respondent had committed the grave crime with proper pre-planning to his own daughter thus the sentence imposed by the High Court was grossly inadequate. The Court further modified the sentence making the imprisonment of 15 years in the first charge and 7 years in the second charge respectively. [Attorney General v. Hewaduragedara Nilantha Dilruksha Kumara, CA (PHC) APN: 01 of 2017, decided on 26-08-2020]
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