Chet Bahadur Thapa vs. The Attorney General – CA HCC/0066/2015-2022

In the case between the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (State) and Chet Bahadur Thapa, the court addressed issues regarding the legal sufficiency of conviction for possession of heroin, specifically examining whether contradictions in prosecution evidence undermined the conviction, the sufficiency of the trial judge’s reasoning under section 283 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, and the handling of the accused’s unsworn dock statement. It was determined that minor discrepancies in prosecution testimony did not reach the threshold to impair credibility, and the evidence, including that of an independent hotel manager, sufficiently corroborated the prosecution’s narrative. The accused’s dock statement, lacking substantive support, was properly discounted. The appellate revie