DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A busi­ness­man from San Fer­nan­do has been or­dered to pay com­pen­sa­tion for in­ter­fer­ing with a wall which sep­a­rates his prop­er­ty from a build­ing hous­ing a law firm.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad made the or­der yes­ter­day as he up­held a tres­pass and nui­sance law­suit brought by Stress­less In­ter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed against Sankar Ma­habirs­ingh.

The dis­pute be­tween the par­ties re­lates to a wall which sep­a­rates two prop­er­ties owned by the com­pa­ny and Ma­habirs­ingh at Lewis Street in San Fer­nan­do.

The com­pa­ny, which is owned by at­tor­ney Saira Lakhan, sought and ob­tained an in­junc­tion ear­li­er this year af­ter Ma­habirs­ingh be­gan in­stalling PVC fix­tures and waste­water pipelines on its side of the shared wall.

The com­pa­ny’s prop­er­ty hous­es Lakhan’s law firm Mag­nus At­tor­neys-at-Law. Lakhan is cur­rent­ly the pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers.

Ma­habirs­ingh con­test­ed the Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion but was un­suc­cess­ful.

The com­pa­ny claimed that the work was done with­out its per­mis­sion and caused dam­age to the wall.

Ma­habirs­ingh filed a counter-claim in which he al­leged that the wall in­fringed his prop­er­ty bound­ary.

In de­ter­min­ing that case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed Ma­habirs­ingh’s ev­i­dence and that of his wit­ness as he ac­cused them of seek­ing to de­ceive the court.

“They were ex­treme­ly dis­hon­est wit­ness­es whose ev­i­dence was craft­ed to cir­cum­vent the truth,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

He re­ject­ed claims that the com­pa­ny’s prop­er­ty was not ful­ly fenced and mem­bers of the pub­lic had ac­cess to a drain next to the wall of its side.

“The en­tire perime­ter of claimant’s prop­er­ty was closed and claimant re­mained in ab­solute con­trol of bound­aries of land,” he said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so point­ed out that Ma­habirs­ingh went ahead with the work al­though Lakhan ad­vised him against such.

De­scrib­ing his con­duct as brutish and “bul­ly-like”, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said, “That type of be­hav­iour will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad gave Ma­habirs­ingh 14 days to re­move all the plumb­ing fix­tures on the wall and re­store it to its orig­i­nal con­di­tion.

He or­dered him to pay $15,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for tres­pass and $10,000 for nui­sance.

Ma­habirs­ingh was al­so or­dered to pay the com­pa­ny’s le­gal costs for the in­junc­tion and the sub­stan­tive case.

The com­pa­ny was rep­re­sent­ed by Prakash Ra­mad­har, Michael Rooplal, and Prem Per­sad-Ma­haraj. Ma­habirs­ingh was rep­re­sent­ed by Richard Ja­gai.