PTL and its CEO fabricated evidence: ASG

 

• ASG Dappula De Livera asks Commission to take action under Contempt of Commission

 

• Evidence of Metropolitan Chief Engineer contradicts stance taken by PTL CEO about its phone recording system

 

• Phone Recording System re-installed on July 06, 2017 -- the day PTL was suspended by CBSL as a primary dealer

 

• Re-installation and re positioning had been identified by the Indian mother company of the system by accessing the system online

·        PTL had tampered with the data during re-installation process deleting caller details and subsequently submitted fabricated material to the Commission

·        According to the service agreement with Metropolitan, PTL was prohibited  from modifying or altering the system without informing the service provider

 

 

By Shehan Chamika Silva

 

Additional Solicitor General Dappula de Livera requested the Commission to take appropriate legal action against Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL) and its CEO Kasun Palisena under Contempt of Commission for fabricating material submitted as evidence.

 

This request was made after Metropolitan Ltd confirmed that the original recording system installed by Metropolitan Limited at PTL stored all details relating to caller IDs and call times, in contrary to the evidence submitted by the PTL CEO and its IT officer. 

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Dappula de Livera informed the Commission that Metropolitan Limited had inspected the recording system of PTL and submitted a report on August 28, 2017, as directed by the Commission.

Metropolitan Limited had said that the recording system had been re- installed on July 6, 2017 without informing the service provider (Metropolitan) and also the backup had been re-installed on the same day.

The report also says that the original system had the options of identifying the caller ID and the time duration as opposed to what PTL CEO and its IT officer had testified earlier.

The ASG also said that PTL IT officer, Sachith Devathanthri, in his statement to the Commission on August 28, 2017 said that he was unaware about such re-installation.

ASG Livera also was of the view that the re-installation had taken place on the very same day that PTL was suspended by the CBSL from business activities as a Primary Dealer in Government securities.

ASG Livera was of the view that PTL had tampered with the data during the re-installation process and subsequently submitted fabricated material to the Commission.

Earlier, PTL CEO Kasun Palisena had submitted an affidavit with the assistance of the IT officer Devathanthri and informed the Commission that its recording system does not show any details of the caller number or time duration other than a serial number of every call.

Therefore, the ASG asked the Commission to take appropriate legal action under Contempt of Commission against the witness and PTL.

It was also revealed that the CID officers had taken over the current computer in which the system’s software was running. However, the ASG said that they had found that the current computer was not the one PTL had used before July 2017, and therefore requested the Commission to issue an appropriate order to obtain the old computer which was used in the phone recording system’s software and data base.

The ASG was of the view that they can prove the allegations by way of an affidavit of Metropolitan Chief Engineer and subsequently Nalin Dharmaratne, the Chief Engineer of Metropolitan Ltd testified before the Commission explaining the matter.Additional Solicitor General Yasantha Kodagoda led the evidence.

It was explained that Metropolitan Limited had installed a phone recording system at PTL on June 2015 which had the capacity of receiving calls from both digital lines and analog lines to the extensions at PTL’s office.

Initially, PTL had only 8 ports for the extension and subsequently, in September 2016 another 16 ports had been placed by the Metropolitan to the system.

The calls were received and sent out through these 24 extensions using both Digital and Analog lines. Thereafter those call details go through another two devices attached to the extensions and finally saved in a main computer which has the voice logger system.

All of these devices were also provided by the Metropolitan as PTL’s service provider.

The witness explained that the all voice recordings of calls go to one folder file as ‘wave format’ in the main computer while all call details relating to those calls are also saved in a different format as data base.

He confirmed that every call detail, such as caller number (incoming or out going), time duration and date will be in the data base of the recording system and Metropolitan Limited had initially placed a system with all those facilities.

He also explained the formal way as how to extract the previous data of calls by using the software options (backup data) of the recording system.

He also said that after a complaint lodged by PTL in June 2015 they had examined the system and prepared it by December 2015. The complaint was about some missing digits of outgoing numbers which were recorded in the system.

However, the PTL had earlier only provided its voice recordings with sequential serial numbers to the Commission. During Last Friday’s (25) cross examination, DSG Milinda Gunathilake pointed out that some phone conversations are missing from the recordings that PTL had provided.

On being questioned by ASG Kodagoda today, the witness Metropolitan Chief Engineer Nalin Dharmaratane said that they had identified a re-installation of the software on July 6 ,2017

When they were examining the back up data, the witness said that they had identified that the previous voice recordings (wave files) had been replaced to the data base.

He said it could have been done by copying voice recordings from the ‘wave’ folder before the re-installation. He said all other call data other than the voice recordings had subsequently been deleted in the re-installation process.

The witness said that such re-installation and re positioning had been identified by the Indian mother company of the system by accessing the system online.

When Justice Prasanna Jayawardena questioned, the witness said that PTL could have easily asked Metropolitan assistance if they wanted a re-installation. Justice Jayawardena also highlighted that according to the service agreement with Metropolitan, PTL was also prohibited in making any modification or alteration to the system without informing the service provider.

Justice Jayawardena: Have you seen such an incident before?

Witness: No I have not come across such an incident in Sri Lanka before pertaining to our customers.

When ASG Kodagoda showed details provided about by PTL CEO and its IT expert in an affidavit to the commission, and questioned whether they were true or false, the witness said they were not technically true according to the phone recording system he installed at PTL.

President’s Counsel Kalinga Indatissa who was appearing for PTL CEO Kasuna Palisena subsequently requested time to cross-examine the witness as he has to get instructions from technical experts about the matter.