Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha is now query­ing whether its le­gal cas­es which were be­fore the court had been com­pro­mised be­cause of il­le­gal wire­tap­ping by the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA).

Its sec­re­tary gen­er­al Sat Ma­haraj and as­sis­tant sec­re­tary De­vant Ma­haraj were among sev­er­al peo­ple who had been "spied on" by the SIA as iden­ti­fied by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing her state­ment in the Par­lia­ment last Fri­day. Fol­low­ing that an­nounce­ment the Ma­hara­js said they planned to sue the state and for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. A let­ter was sent to the Di­rect of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard on Mon­day, via their at­tor­neys Jagdeo Singh, Kelvin Ramkissoon and Lar­ry Lal­la.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the Ma­ha Sab­ha head­quar­ters, East­ern Main Road, St Au­gus­tine, yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj (S) said he and Ma­haraj (D) were vic­tims of an il­le­gal ex­er­cise. They were ac­com­pa­nied by the spir­i­tu­al leader of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty Dhar­ma­charya Ut­tam Ma­haraj and their at­tor­neys. Ma­haraj (S) said: "We have asked our le­gal team to do a num­ber of things on our be­half. "One was to first­ly write to the Di­rec­tor of Pu­bic Pros­e­cu­tions in­di­cat­ing that we have great con­cerns about the rev­e­la­tions by the Prime Min­is­ter that we are be­ing spied up­on and that the spy­ing ex­er­cise wasn't a le­gal ex­er­cise but quite il­le­gal. "And we ask our le­gal team to pur­sue with the DPP and to in­ves­ti­gate whether we have a le­gal case, both against the State and against the for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil who was Mr Patrick Man­ning."

Ma­haraj (S) al­so re­ferred to con­sti­tu­tion­al cas­es which were won by the Ma­ha Sab­ha in the Privy Coun­cil, name­ly the Ma­ha Sab­ha Ra­dio Li­cence and the Trin­i­ty Cross case. "Not on­ly were the se­nior of­fi­cers in the Ma­ha Sab­ha spied on but now our at­tor­ney, who was Anand Ram­lo­gan, who is the present At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, he was al­so be­ing spied up­on so we ask our­selves the ques­tion whether our cas­es were be­ing com­pro­mised," he added.

More In­fo

Of­fences for a pri­ma fa­cie case as out­lined by the at­tor­neys:

-Mis­con­duct/mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice;

-mon­ey laun­der­ing, fraud­u­lent con­ver­sion and cheat­ing the pub­lic rev­enue;

-con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud;

-Nigel Clement/mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice; and,

-Of­fences against The Com­put­er Mis­use Act chap 11:17.