Nagalanda Throws a Missile at Tall Man President of the BASL
By Editorial Team
In a dramatic escalation of tensions within Sri Lanka's legal community, suspended attorney-at-law Nagalanda has launched a scathing broadside against Rajiva Amarasuriya, the President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL). The attack, delivered through a detailed 41-point memorandum, challenges the very foundation of Amarasuriya's leadership and raises serious questions about the integrity of the BASL's disciplinary processes.
The controversy centers on two interconnected issues: the controversial removal of Nagalanda from the legal profession and the alleged cover-up of a massive Rs. 16 billion customs duty fraud involving luxury BMW vehicles. What emerges from this extraordinary document is a portrait of an institution that, according to Nagalanda, has abandoned its core principles of justice, fairness, and professional ethics.
The Numbers That Haunt the BASL Presidency
Nagalanda opens his attack with a devastating statistical blow. He points out that Sri Lanka's law colleges have produced over 38,000 attorneys, yet Amarasuriya secured the BASL presidency with merely 4,497 votes. This represents less than 12% of the total legal community. The question Nagalanda poses is both simple and damning: does the BASL President even actively practice law? He notes that at least 20% of attorneys do not engage in active practice, challenging whether Amarasuriya himself falls into that category.
More fundamentally, Nagalanda questions whether Amarasuriya acknowledges that every BASL member's duty is to uphold the association's constitution, the country's laws, and Supreme Court rules with honesty and integrity. The implication is clear: leadership by a figure who does not actively practice or who fails to uphold these standards represents a betrayal of the profession's foundational values.
The Disciplinary Double Standard
Perhaps the most explosive section of Nagalanda's memorandum concerns the disciplinary action taken against him. He reveals that on February 29, 2024, the Supreme Court (SC/Rule/3/2017) ordered his removal from the legal profession and prohibited him from filing public interest litigation. Yet he poses a series of questions that expose what he characterizes as a fundamentally flawed process.
Nagalanda demands to know exactly which professional ethics or disciplinary rules he violated. He points to the statement that formed the basis of his removal: "Statements that judges are charged with judicial corruption where no semblance of proof is tendered is not the conduct of a lawyer." This allegation, he argues, was made without any evidence being tendered before the court by either the Attorney General or the BASL.
Crucially, Nagalanda asserts that no disciplinary inquiry was ever conducted into these allegations. The Supreme Court, he claims, simply accepted the accusations at face value and incorporated them into its judgment. He quotes the court's own language: "Blatantly accusing judges of corruption with no cause or evidence would not only obstruct the course of justice but also cause serious consequences to the integrity and effectiveness of the judicial system."
The irony, Nagalanda suggests, is that this judgment was pronounced in his absence and then widely publicized across electronic, social, and print media with his name and photograph. He asks whether the BASL President was unaware that such a judgment, delivered without the respondent being present, constitutes a serious miscarriage of justice.
The BMW Customs Fraud: A Decade of Controversy
The second major pillar of Nagalanda's attack concerns the Rs. 16 billion customs duty fraud involving Prestige Automobile, the local agent for BMW vehicles. This case, which Nagalanda has pursued through multiple courts over nearly a decade, forms the backdrop to what he describes as a systematic effort to bury evidence of massive state revenue loss.
The chronology is complex but revealing. In 2013, the Customs Investigation Bureau initiated case CIB/INV/32/2013 regarding 1,675 BMW vehicles imported by Prestige Automobile, involving alleged customs duty evasion of Rs. 16 billion. According to Nagalanda, this case was fraudulently suppressed, prompting him, through Transparency International Sri Lanka, to file a writ petition before the Court of Appeal (CA/Writ/108/2018).
Nagalanda claims that following this petition, German customs authorities provided crucial commercial invoices that Prestige Automobile had concealed from Sri Lankan customs. Armed with this evidence, the Attorney General reportedly informed the court that the suppressed customs case would be revived. Yet Nagalanda's petition was withdrawn in 2018, with the right to re-file if necessary.
What followed, according to Nagalanda's account, is a pattern of legal maneuvering designed to protect Prestige Automobile. He alleges that the company was advised to refuse participation in the revived customs case, and that it was Additional Solicitor General Sumathi Dharmawardena who summoned customs officials to the Attorney General's Department to inquire who was advising the company. Nagalanda states that he personally met then-Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam to inform him that he would file charges against Dharmawardena under the Penal Code.
The Court of Appeal's 2024 Judgment
The case took a significant turn on May 7, 2024, when the Court of Appeal issued a judgment in case CA/Writ/415/2022, which Nagalanda claims was a "fraudulent" petition filed by Amarasuriya and his legal team on behalf of Prestige Automobile. This judgment, Nagalanda argues, effectively upheld the right of customs to revive the case based on new evidence from Germany.
However, rather than accept this judgment, Nagalanda alleges that Amarasuriya's team immediately filed another petition before the Supreme Court (SC/Spl/172/2024). Notably, they again failed to name Customs Director Murugesu Sudayaparam as a necessary respondent. On February 18, 2026, Supreme Court Justice Janak de Silva reportedly set aside the Court of Appeal judgment and remitted the matter for fresh hearing.
The legal battle continues, with Nagalanda accusing Amarasuriya's team of repeatedly attempting to have Sudayaparam's intervention rejected. On July 28, 2026, when the case was called again, they once again objected to his participation.
A Question of Justice or Cover-Up?
Nagalanda frames his entire legal battle as a matter of public interest rather than personal grievance. The Rs. 16 billion in disputed customs duties, he emphasizes, belongs to the state and ultimately to the people of Sri Lanka. Both he and Sudayaparam, he insists, have acted solely in the public interest.
The 41st and final question in Nagalanda's memorandum is perhaps the most devastating: if Amarasuriya knew for over a decade that this was a case of massive state revenue fraud, then his efforts to suppress it through procedural maneuvers represent either a dereliction of his professional duty or active complicity in a cover-up.
This extraordinary confrontation between Nagalanda and the BASL President raises fundamental questions about the state of Sri Lanka's legal profession. Can a professional body genuinely claim to uphold justice when its disciplinary processes appear to lack basic procedural fairness? Can a leader claim to represent the interests of 38,000 attorneys when less than 5,000 voted for him?
More troubling still is the implication that powerful commercial interests can weaponize legal institutions to bury investigations into massive state revenue fraud. If Nagalanda's account is accurate, then the BASL and the Attorney General's Department have become instruments not of justice but of obstruction.
Nagalanda's memorandum is unlikely to be the last word in this saga. But it has already succeeded in exposing fault lines that the legal establishment would prefer remain hidden. As Sri Lanka grapples with economic crisis and demands for accountability, the question of who truly serves justice—and who serves power—has never been more urgent.