The commission, June 7 -- The bureaucrat who signed off on an irregular vehicle transfer in 2017 did not expect to face handcuffs nearly a decade later. Neither, perhaps, did the finance official at a state-run grocery chain who sold tens of thousands of kilograms of onions to a private buyer without bothering to ask the Cabinet. Yet both were among the latest batch of arrests carried out by Sri Lanka's Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, a once-dormant body that has become the most consequential institution in the country's post-crisis political order.

currently serving in the Ministry of Finance - over allegations that he approved the unlawful transfer of an unregistered vehicle in 2017. The suspect was prod...