Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) has re­quest­ed the dis­clo­sure of doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to a law­suit which re­sult­ed in the re­in­state­ment of a long-serv­ing teacher, who turned down a pro­mo­tion to be a prin­ci­pal of one of its pri­ma­ry schools due to her daugh­ter’s med­ical con­di­tion be­fore hav­ing a change of heart days lat­er.

Last Wednes­day, High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well or­dered the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) to re­in­state In­dra Ram­datt-Jagdeo as prin­ci­pal of the Hap­py Hill SDMS Pri­ma­ry School in Gas­par­il­lo ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 2, next year.

In a let­ter to TSC chair­man, Eliz­a­beth Crouch, sent yes­ter­day and ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the SDMS’s lawyer Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said his client on­ly be­came aware of what tran­spired based on news­pa­per re­ports.

Ram­bal­ly re­quest­ed the dis­clo­sure of Ram­datt-Jagdeo’s court fil­ings and al­so en­quired whether its views on the is­sue, com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the min­istry and the com­mis­sion in nu­mer­ous cor­re­spon­dence, formed part of the ev­i­dence in the case.

He not­ed that short­ly af­ter Ram­datt-Jagdeo re­signed, it rec­om­mend­ed an­oth­er teacher at the school to act in the po­si­tion.

He al­so point­ed out that his client stood by its rec­om­men­da­tion of the oth­er teacher when the com­mis­sion con­tact it in Sep­tem­ber to ex­press the view that Ram­datt-Jagdeo’s ap­point­ment was still valid.

“The SDMS’s pri­ma­ry con­cern has al­ways been and con­tin­ues to be the safe­ty of stu­dents, the over­all sta­bil­i­ty and suc­cess of the school,” Ram­bal­ly said.

Ac­cord­ing to her court fil­ings in April, Ram­datt-Jagdeo took up a pro­mo­tion to be the prin­ci­pal of the school.

Ram­datt-Jagdeo, who is a wid­ow and has been a sin­gle par­ent to her two chil­dren for the past 15 years, claimed that around the time she took up the ap­point­ment the health of her daugh­ter, who has a spinal birth de­fect, be­gan to wors­en.

She claimed that she was dis­tressed and had doubts over her abil­i­ty to take on the pro­mo­tion based on her daugh­ter’s de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion and the fact that she (her daugh­ter) was due to un­der­go a risky pro­ce­dure which could re­sult in her be­ing paral­ysed from the neck down.

In late April, she ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion based on al­leged ad­vice from an un­named of­fi­cial of the TSC as she claimed that she was un­der the im­pres­sion that she could re­sume her du­ties as a teacher af­ter.

Her res­ig­na­tion let­ter was on­ly re­ceived sev­er­al days lat­er when it was stamped by a school su­per­vi­sor.

Two days lat­er, Ram­datt-Jagdeo had a change of heart and wrote to the min­istry seek­ing to re­scind her pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence.

While min­istry of­fi­cials al­leged­ly in­di­cat­ed that the with­draw­al of her res­ig­na­tion could be fa­cil­i­tat­ed based on the short time line, she was lat­er in­formed that this was not pos­si­ble due to re­sis­tance from the school’s de­nom­i­na­tion­al board.

Ram­datt-Jagdeo claimed that she met with board of­fi­cials, who in­di­cat­ed that they pre­ferred that she did not re­turn to the post based on her in­de­ci­sive­ness.

She claimed that she was forced to file the law­suit af­ter she at­tempt­ed to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion with the min­istry to no avail.

In her court fil­ings, Ram­datt-Jagdeo’s lawyers from Free­dom Law Cham­bers claimed that she is re­gret­ful for the in­con­ve­nience caused by the ini­tial let­ter.

“With­in two days she sub­mit­ted the let­ter of re­trac­tion, yet she has been left in a state of abeyance and lim­bo when she has not been ap­point­ed to serve in an of­fice in the teach­ing ser­vice. This has caused her se­vere hard­ship, much stress and grave in­con­ve­nience,” they said.

Through the law­suit, Ram­datt-Jagdeo was seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that she was treat­ed un­fair­ly and con­trary to the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well is­sued the or­der as the min­istry and the com­mis­sion re­port­ed­ly con­ced­ed the case.

She al­so or­dered that the min­istry con­tin­ue to pay Ram­datt-Jagdeo her salary and ben­e­fits as a school prin­ci­pal.

The TSC and the min­istry were al­so or­dered to pay her le­gal costs for pur­su­ing the case.

Ram­datt-Jagdeo was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Natasha Bis­ram, Vishaal Siewsaran, and Jared Ja­groo.