Great betrayals in appointing some IGPs

by Kingsley Wickremasuriya
Rtd. Senior DIG

(continued from last week)

Lakdasa (Lucky) Kodituwakku was the Inspector-General at the time the Waymaba Provincial Council elections took place early in 1999. He was blamed for the violence and the malpractices that took place during those elections. The 17th Amendment to the Constitution was the result of a political initiative launched by MPs in the Opposition led by the UNP in 2001 as a response to the Wayamba election incidents.

This was the second betrayal by a Head of State/Government. President Chandrika Kumaratunga decided to appoint Lucky Kodituwakku the 26th IGP ignoring so many seniors over him just because of the special position he enjoyed as the Personal Security officer (PSO) of a VVIP that gave him an advantage over his seniors to canvass for the post. The Wayamba election bungling and the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was the result.

These precedents led to yet other betrayals last of which was when Deshabandu Tennakoon came to be appointed by the current President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the 36th IGP even though the Supreme Court held he was guilty of human rights violation.

Tennakoon Mudiyanselage Wanshalankara Deshabandu Tennakoon (born July 4, 1971), known as Deshabandu Tennakoon is the current Inspector General of the Sri Lankan Police. On December 14, 2023, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court ruled that he and two of his subordinates were guilty of torturing Weheragedara Ranjith Sumangala of Kindelpitiya for alleged theft, thereby violating his fundamental rights, when the accused policemen were attached to the Nugegoda Police Division in 2010.

The Fundamental Rights Application (SC/FR 107/2011) was filled by Sumangala in the Supreme Court in March 2011, against the then Superintendent of Police, Tennakoon, Inspector of Police Bhathiya Jayasinghe, then OIC (Emergency Unit) Mirihana, Police Officer Bandara, former Sergeant Major Ajith Wanasundera of Padukka, and several other policemen. The three-judge bench consisting of Justices S. Thurairaja, Kumudini Wickremasinghe, and Priyantha Fernando, directed the National Police Commission and other relevant authorities to take disciplinary action against Tennakoon and two of his subordinates.

On November 29. 2023, President Ranil Wickremesinghe however, appointed Tennakoon as acting Inspector General of Police. He was appointed as the permanent IGP on February 26. 2024. The same day, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa claimed that the  Constitutional Council, which oversees high-level appointments, saw four votes cast in favor of Tennakoon and two against with two abstentions. The speaker, chairing the council, counted the abstentions as votes against and used his own casting vote to break the tie. Premadasa pointed out that this would make the appointment illegal pointing out that the IGP can be removed through an investigation by a three-member committee if found guilty of the specified offense (s) under the Removal of Officers (Procedure) Act No. 5 of 2002.

Epilogue

It was the Dutch that introduced the concept of policing when the Colombo Municipal Council under them resolved in 1659 to appoint paid guards to protect the city by night. They were the forerunners of the police in the country.

However, under the British, the military maintained law and order for some time with these duties later assumed by the office of the fiscal. With Robert Campbell taking over as the first IGP, policing in Sri Lanka was placed on a firm footing following the Rule of Law. Several successors followed in the footsteps of Campbell. Policing, after all, “is the exercise of the Rule of Law.” This practice continued until after the introduction of legislative reforms brought local politics into the picture.

The first reported challenge to the Rule of Law between the Police and the political authority was when the Inspector-General Colonel Halland was forced to resign in the spring of 1944 due to a deteriorating relationship with the Minister for Home Affairs, Arunachalam Mahadeva.. Then came the incident where Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike is reported to have exhorted IGP Osmund de Silva that the police should have that ‘extra bit of loyalty to the government.’ The IGP responded that the duty of the police was to uphold the Rule of Law. Later when de Silva declined to do the Prime Minister’s bidding for police intervention against trade union action in the Colombo port, on the basis that he believed the request was not lawful, Bandaranaike removed this officer. De Silva,, the first Ceylonese IGP, was compulsorily retired and MWF Abeykoon from outside the police was appointed in his place. This set off a series of reactions ending in an attempted coup.

Then onward ‘The Rule of Law’ took a backstage, and politics the upper hand. The result was that those who showed ‘that extra bit of loyalty to the government’ received rewards through coveted positions like ambassadorial appointments post-retirement. In June 1990, during his tenure as IGP, Ernest Perera instructed police officers at all police stations in the Eastern Province to surrender to the LTTE on the direction of President Ranasinghe Premadasa. This resulted in the subsequent mass murder of over 600 unarmed police by the LTTE The massacre triggered the start of the second Eelam War. Perera retired from the police service on November 29, 1993 and post-retirement, from 1994 to 1995 served as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in Malaysia. This is just one example.

In contrast, while all this happened in the top echelons of the police what happened down below is seen in the W.T. Jayasinghe Committee (1995) report. It said that undue pressure was brought to bear in the matter of appointments, promotions, postings, and even transfers. These undue pressures were mostly from politicians and those close to politicians. This was one of the main reasons for the breakdown of discipline, loss of morale, and high incidence of corruption in the police.

The interference did not stop with personnel matters like transfers, promotions, etc. It extended even to operational matters like criminal investigations. As a result of the increasing incidence of interference by MPs in investigations, the Committee said that some of the officers who were fair and acted impartially were removed and transferred from their stations overnight at the instance of the MP because the offender happened to be a supporter of the MP.

Others who had a well-known track record of corruption or inefficiency were promoted over the heads of conscientious and dedicated officers. They also pointed out how in recent years junior officers have been promoted over their seniors, ostensibly on the grounds of outstanding merit. This affected the morale of the entire Service.

The Committee further held that the sole function of the police during that time was to safeguard the interests of the rulers. Even after Independence, the stance of the police did not change. The prime duty of the police then became the safety of the State. In the process, the police saw their immediate role to be safeguarding the interests of the government in power which eventually took the form of safeguarding the interests of the MPs of the ruling party. The relationship between the police officer and the MP became a particularly sensitive one, much more so than that with other government officials, because of the special demands of constituents close to the MP to help them escape the rigorous application of the law by the police.

Epilogue

‘Perhaps within the last 50 years, it was during the Dowbiggin period that the Ceylon Police, generally speaking, enjoyed its highest reputation, and it would most probably have gone from strength to strength as a Police force but for the unfortunate Sinhala-Muslim Riots of 1915. They served to disturb the sense of proportion of that otherwise robust-minded Inspector-General, and obsessed him with what might be described as a Riot complex’.

From that time on, the force which had been gradually emancipating itself from its undoubtedly military origin on this Island and from, its military traditions, began to go back to them. Parades and drills with band accompaniments, rifle practices, route marches, bayonet charges, and similar military- exercises of which there were so many complaints made, occupied most of the time of the members of the force. Lapses and defaults on the part of the men in respect of these matters were punished with fatigues, penalty drills, confinement to barracks, and similar military punishments.

The Force was thus fast falling away from Blackstone’s conception of what a Police Force should be: ~ LEGAL CUSTODIANS APPOINTED TO PRESERVE THE PEACE, TO KEEP WATCH AND WARD IN THE DISTRICTS, AND TO BRING CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE. They were thus shaped and trained mainly to meet the emergency of riots.

Furthermore. facing the riot of 1915 which broke out between Sinhalese Buddhists and Muslim Ceylon Moors, he authorized the use of draconian measures, including execution, flogging, and imprisonment.

This would not have mattered very much if it was only a brief episode in the history of the Force. Still, Inspector-General Dowbiggin continued in the office of Inspector-General of Police for more than 20 years after the riots, and the militarization of the police went on much to the distaste, and even to the perturbation of the public.

But in those days, there was very little the public could do to alter that state of things, and so they endured what they thought could not be cured. Despite this military bent, considerable work of a true police character was done in his time, and several very efficient Ceylonese officers adorned the force in those days.

The political decision taken by Premier SWRD Bandaranaike, in appointing an officer out of the Police Service who had no experience or who knew little of the police or the Police Ordinance, just because they were bridge partners, was flawed. It almost ended up in a calamity with the country confronted with a military coup as a result. Similarly, the decision taken by President Kumaratunga to appoint Lucky Kodituwakku who had been out of the Police service for nearly two decades just because this officer happened to have had a close association with her family in his official capacity, too was equally flawed. It did nothing good either to the reputation of the Police or to themselves other than to bring dishonor by way of Wayamba Election episode culminating in the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.

The Rule of Law is deeply embedded in our soil going as far back as Elara’s love of justice, stronger than the affection for his own son who he executed him for killing a calf. The Inspector General of Police is the professional head of the Sri Lanka Police. Alas, we have seen how successive IGPs failed to restore the Rule of Law but were quite complacent with the political onslaughts against their domains cutting their authority under their own feet with none so brave to cry’ Enough is Enough’ except for one brave officer, Cyril Herath, who threw the lure of higher office out of the window and stood firm by his own convictions and principles.

If the highest in the land have not yet learned their lessons from the very calamities they have brought upon this land then what role does the Rule of Law have to play? ‘Quis Custodiet Ipsos custodes?’. Who Guards the Guards?