• Appellant claims his deceased brother was denied transport by Suwa Seriya ambulance  

The Right to Information (RTI) Commission ruled yesterday (29) that the relevant information should be released to the applicant who requested information pertaining to an incident of the 1990 ‘Suwa Seriya’ ambulance service not hospitalising a person who met with an accident on the Udubaddawa Road in Nattandiya in 2022.

B.J. Suranga, a resident of the Puttalam area, had requested information pertaining to the incident of his brother, who had met with an accident on 26 May 2022, not being hospitalised by the Suwa Seriya service. A complaint has been lodged with the Police, alleging that the accident is suspicious. His brother had succumbed to the injuries.

The information Suranga had requested include the time of the message received by the Suwa Seriya related to the accident, the details of those who were in the ambulance deployed to the relevant location, the time of the ambulance’s arrival at the location, and the reasons for not taking his brother to the hospital. Suwa Seriya had not provided the relevant information, claiming that they were coming under the nature of personal information. Suranga had then made an appeal to the commission. When the appeal was taken up before the commission yesterday, Suranga and Suwa Seriya officials appeared before it. Concluding the appeal hearing, the commission ordered the Suwa Seriya ambulance service to provide all the information that he had requested, except for the name and contact number of the person who would provide the information, before 29 March. The commission also stated that the willful failure to implement an order issued by it is a punishable offence.

The relevant decision is said to be the first RTI Commission decision issued in relation to the Suwa Seriya service.