Oct 20, 2009 (LBO) - The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said one of the accused in its case against senior executives of Singalanka Standard Chemicals charged with falsifying accounts and forging auditors' signatures has pleaded guilty. The SEC said the court re-issued summons against the first accused, the former chairman of Singalanka Standard Chemicals, Ratnaraja Navaratnam, returnable on October 28, 2009 as he was absent and unrepresented. The SEC said in a statement it has instituted action in the Magistrate's Court of Colombo Fort against the former chairman and a key employee of Singalanka Standard Chemicals.
They were charged with 15 counts for conspiracy and for submitting audited financial statements to the Colombo Stock Exchange on the forged signatures of the auditors for the 2002-2007 financial years.
"When the matter was taken up before the Magistrate’s Court recently, the second accused, Kanepathipillai Ketheeshwaran, pleaded guilty to five counts," the SEC statement said.
"The court imposed a fine of 50,000 rupees each on the second accused for four of the counts and imposed a prison sentence of six months suspended for a period of five years on the fifth count."
