National Livestock Development Board (NLDB) Chairman M.K. Muthuvinayagam who was arrested on Friday for soliciting a bribe from a businessman, was remanded by the Colombo Additional Magistrate Dulani Amaransighe till October 18.
A Bribery department official said yesterday that the NLDB Chairman had solicited the bribe, despite a Court order to rent out the restaurant at the Malsiripura farm to the complainant. The lease agreement for the transaction was already prepared, but nonetheless, he had opted to solicit a bribe of Rs.1.2 million, later reduced to Rs. 600,000 from the businessman.
The bribe was accepted by a third party, an audit clerk working for a private company owned by the accused.
“Under Section 89 of the Bribery Act, if someone else physically accepts a bribe on behalf of another person, he will still be found guilty of the crime,” a senior Bribery department official said.
The Bribery department sleuths listened to a phone conversation where the audit clerk conveyed to the accused who was in a separate room in the same building, the NLDB headquarters in Colombo, that he had received the money.
The complainant, thereafter, met the Chairman to inform him that the money (the bribe) had been paid to his aide downstairs. At this point, the bribery sleuths had apprehended the Chairman.