Janaki Siriwardena, a former Executive Officer and Director of the Krrish Group, was remanded until October 6 on Thursday over an alleged Rs. 70 million bribe paid to MP Namal Rajapaksa — and the same court cleared investigators to question Rajapaksa inside prison.

The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) said she was taken into custody when she arrived at the commission to give a statement, NewsFirst reported. She was produced before the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court that afternoon, where Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama ordered her remanded until October 6.

Court clears CIABOC to question Namal in prison

In the same sitting, the magistrate directed prison authorities to allow commission officers to record a statement from Rajapaksa, who is already in remand custody in a separate matter, Hiru News reported.

The court also instructed CIABOC to summon evidence on October 2 with a view to issuing warrants for two Indian nationals named as suspects — company directors Amit Kattiyar and Rajendra Prasad.

Appearing for the commission, Assistant Director and Attorney-at-Law Ama Wijesinghe told the court the investigation began on a written complaint received in 2023. She said the suspect, acting as a representative of Mahadev Company — the parent of the Krrish company — joined the two other directors in providing the money to Rajapaksa through an intermediary named Nimal Hemasiri Perera. Investigators said the Rs. 70 million was paid on three separate occasions.

What the payment is alleged to have bought

The Daily Mirror was the only outlet to state what investigators say the money was for. It reported that she was arrested over allegations she provided Rs. 70 million to Rajapaksa in return for assistance in expediting the acquisition of the Transworks Square land in Colombo Fort, owned by the Urban Development Authority, for the Krrish Group.

That detail matters, because it describes the same sum from the opposite direction to the case already before the courts.

The same Rs. 70 million, framed two ways

Rajapaksa is already a defendant in a Colombo High Court case arising from Krrish’s dealings. The Attorney General’s indictment, filed in February 2025, alleges he committed criminal breach of trust by obtaining Rs. 70 million from the India-based company on the pretext of promoting rugby in Sri Lanka, and then misusing the funds. That trial was fixed to begin on July 7.

The figure, the company and the recipient are the same. The characterisation is not: the indictment treats the money as funds obtained under a false pretext and misspent, while Thursday’s arrest treats it as a bribe paid for a land transaction.

Thursday’s hearing settled how the two will run. CIABOC told the court that although the Attorney General has indicted Rajapaksa in the High Court for criminal breach of trust over the same Rs. 70 million, its bribery investigation proceeds separately from that case, under the Anti-Corruption Act.

CIABOC’s inquiry into the Krrish transaction has been running alongside the court case for months. Avant-Garde Maritime Services chairman Nissanka Senadhipathi gave a statement to the commission over the same project in August. No allegation against him has been made public.

Context

The arrest lands while Rajapaksa is already in custody in an unrelated matter. His bail application in the SriLankan Airlines Airbus money laundering case was refused on Tuesday and his remand extended to September 30.

A note on sourcing: Hiru gives the surname as “Siriwardhana” where NewsFirst and the Daily Mirror give “Siriwardena”; in court she was named in full as Geethanjali Janaki de Soysa Siriwardena. The two outlets also describe the prison statement differently — NewsFirst ties it to this investigation, while Hiru’s English report refers to a statement “regarding the incident of taking a bribe during the Airbus transaction,” which appears to conflate the separate case in which Rajapaksa is currently held. No outlet reported whether she entered a plea or applied for bail.

Sources