Witness 2 for Claimant: Rankikili

I had the opportunity of studying the lease facility gave Soul Entertainments
from the Pettah Branch. On 19 th September 1995 there was a letter of request for
a lease facility of US $ 42,357.55 approximating to Rs. 2.75 M and duty of Rs.
500,000/- by Soul Entertainments. The application was forwarded to the Head
Office and meantime the Respondent sent a letter dated 27 th September, stating
that he immediately needed to remit the money of US $ 42,357.55 and he asked
for a temporary overdraft of Rs. 2M. It was given. Although the Respondent’s
current account was already overdrawn normally his cheques were not returned
but they were overdrawn and honoured. In October the credits which had gone
into his account had been only Rs. 86,240/- whereas the debits to that account
for the month had been Rs. 2,468,431.81. Furthermore the down payment was
137,568 also was recovered from his current account.

The Respondent’s account was further overdrawn by Rs. 800,000/- and Rs.
600,000/- on 25th October 1995. On 30th October 1995, the Respondent sent a
letter saying that he wants the Bank to enhance the lease facility from Rs. 2.7 M to
Rs. 4.25 M since he had miscalculated the duty and so. It was approved. On 21 st
November the lease facility was granted and the Respondent’s current account
was credited with Rs. 4.25 M and his current account debit balance was
4,316,841.50.

The monthly rental was due on 10th day of the each month. Although the lease
facility was granted the Respondent didn’t pay the installments from December
1995 to May 1996 out of his fund and these installments were deducted from his
current account. These accommodations were given to Mr. because he was a
good customer and in the hope that he would make good this amount. The
current account balance was 1,437,563/- and he owed the bank the lease rentals
then the Bank decided to stopped the operations of the particular account in June
1996. Again in August 1996 the 1 st Respondent paid the lease rental then the
Lease Agreement became current and only August he was in arrears. On 2 nd
September 1997 he sent a letter to the Bank stating that the business name was
registered as an individual business with immediate effect.

The Respondents began to fall into arrears of rentals from January 1998 and the
called for the dues as the rentals were not paid we sent the notice of termination.
When the notice of termination is sent the Bank is entitled to sue for the entire
balance due to the ban inclusive of interest and everything. On 5 th July 1998 I
was informed by the 1st Respondent about the destruction of the asset due to a
fire.