Ravindrajith vs. Attorney General – sllr 2014 volume 1 page 395

In the case between Ravindrajith and the Attorney General, the court addressed whether a minimum mandatory sentence exists under the Poison, Opium & Dangerous Drugs Act (as amended by Act No. 13 of 1984) for possession and trafficking of less than one gram of heroin, and the legal effect of discrepancies between the Sinhala/Tamil texts and the English translation of the statute. It was held that, owing to the authoritative status of the Sinhala and Tamil texts under Article 23 of the Constitution after the 16th Amendment, the mandatory language in the original texts requires both imprisonment and a fine, removing judicial discretion. The principle that the primary language texts of enacted laws prevail in cases of inconsistency was reaffirmed. This determination relied upon statutory inter