His Lordship was called to the bar in 1988 and joined the Official Bar in 1989 as a State Counsel, where he gradually rose to the position of Additional Solicitor General. In 2016 he was appointed a President’s Counsel and subsequently elevated as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. During his career at the Attorney General’s Department, he prosecuted in various Criminal cases including white collar crimes.
Justice Thurairaja is also a Barrister and a Solicitor in the Republic of Fiji Islands, where he also served as a Judge. He holds an LL.B from the University of Colombo and an LL.M from the University College London as well as many Post-Graduate Diplomas and Diplomas in subjects such as Forensic Medicine, Web Security etc. He specialises in the fields of Human Rights, Prevention of Child Abuse, Trafficking and Forensic Science, including fingerprint and DNA.
He was a lecturer, examiner and trainer in many institutions, including Sri Lanka Law College, University of Colombo, Open University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Police Higher Training Institute, Excise Department, and Kotelawala Defence Academy, to name a few.
In January 2019, he was elevated to the Supreme Court as a Judge of the Supreme Court. Presently, in addition to being a senior sitting Justice of the Supreme Court, he is also a Lecturer at the Sri Lanka Judges Institute, a lecturer at the University of Colombo Postgraduate Programmes, a Member of the Incorporated Council of Legal Education as well as the first Sri Lankan to have been appointed as the Patron of the Commonwealth Legal Education Association.