Nilanga Dela Bandara, Diyawadan Nilame of Temple of Tooth (Dalada Maligawa) won a lottery today. It is of worth Rs 2500 lacks. This was however not won through a lottery. He won this as a compensation for a legal case which was made against him insulting him.
There was a huge outburst against him in the year 2007 as 25 statues of Lord Buddha which were said be painted with gold were stolen and that accusation fell on him. An organization called Preservation of Heritage and National values accused Nilanga Dela Bandara in connection with the robbery. These articles against him were mainly published by Upali Newspaper publications in ‘Divaina’‘ newspaper.
Organization for preserving National values took legal steps and accused Nilanga Dela Bandara by filing Human Rights case. In 2010 August, the accusations were proved to be wrong and Nilanga Dela Bandara was freed from the case by the Supreme Court.
Afterwards he had filed a case against the Organization for Preserving National values stating that he was being insulted asking for 500 million rupees.
The judgment had been given today. Upali Publications who had been a respondent during the beginning had apologized by publishing a note regarding their misinterpretation.
Thus, Kolonnawe Sirisantha Thera, Sumangala Thera and Dias Hengamuwa had been the convicts for insulting Diyawadane Nilame and the District judge, Dhammika Ganepola had ordered them to pay a compensation worth of Rs 250 million.
It is recorded as the biggest amount that had been pronounced as compensation by a Sri Lankan court.
