N. Bandula Karunarathna J.

This appeal is from the judgment, delivered by the learned Judge of the High Court of Kegalle, dated 29.11.2017 by which, the accused-appellant, who is before this court via Zoom Platform, was convicted and sentenced to death for having murdered Wahumpurayalage Pushpakumara Wijekoon.

The accused-appellant, had been indicted on 13.05.2014 in the High Court of Kegalle for committing the murder of Wahumpurayalage Pushpakumara Wijekoon on or about 23.04.2013, which is punishable in terms of section 296 of the Penal Code.

After the trial without a Jury, the learned High Court Judge convicted the accused-appellant and imposed death sentence on 29.11.2017. Being aggrieved by the conviction and sentence, the accused-appellant has preferred this appeal to this court.

The appellant has raised 3 grounds of appeal. (i.) Whether the learned Trial Judge correctly followed the Procedure with regard to section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act. (ii.) Whether the learned Trial Judge correctly followed the Procedure with regard to section 195(ee) of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act. (iii.) Whether the learned Trial Judge has considered the evidence of the Sniffer Dogs as credible evidence in this case when it was unsafe to act on such evidence The trial had commenced on 20.05.2015, during which the prosecution had, led evidence of 16 witnesses, marked documents පැ - 1 to පැ - 28. Once the prosecution had closed its case, the accused-appellant had made a statement from the dock. Thereafter, the learned magistrate who conducted the inquest was summoned to give evidence on behalf of the accused person. At the conclusion of the trial, the accused-appellant had been found guilty on the murder charge and sentenced to death. Aggrieved by the said decision the accused-appellant preferred this appeal.

The aforesaid charges were read out to the accused-appellant in open courts, the accused person requested for a non-jury trial. The learned counsel for the accused-appellant argued that the Trial Judge failed to comply with the mandatory provisions of section 196 of the code of Criminal Procedure Code as the aforesaid charges were only read out to the accused appellant but not explained the charges to him. Whereas according to section 196 he "shall read over and explain the charges to the accused".

The purpose of reading out and explaining a charge to an accused Is that he should be fully informed of the Accusation against him to enable him to respond. Merely reading out a charge will not achieve this purpose since a person who is not educated in law will not understand the contents of a charge sufficiently to enable him to effectively plead the charge. In the present case the charge in the indictment is specifically mentioned as follows;

Even if the accused person appeared in person, the present charge could have been understood very well as it was in simple language. If the charge was expressed using legal terms and if it cannot be understood for a layman then it is a different matter to be considered at the appeal stage. I do not agree with the said argument of the learned counsel for the appellant that the accused person did not understand the charge against him. Not only that the accused person was represented by learned defence counsel and therefore if the charge was complicated and difficult to understand it is the duty and responsibility of the defence counsel to inform the court that the charge should be explained to his client. There was no such request from the learned counsel for the accused person according to the proceedings dated 20.05.2015.

It is important to note that on 07.08.2014 when the indictment was served on the accused person for the first time there was no appearance on behalf of the accused person when the indictment was read over to him the accused person has pleaded not guilty and requested for a nun-jury trial. It was recorded and thereafter counsel was assigned by the learned High Court Judge at t