The State has been or­dered to pay more than $3.5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to a prison of­fi­cer, who was re­in­stat­ed last year fol­low­ing a 15-year le­gal bat­tle with the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) over be­ing de­clared to have aban­doned her job af­ter miss­ing work for sev­er­al months due to in­jury and preg­nan­cy.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion yes­ter­day morn­ing, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad or­dered com­pen­sa­tion for Fa­vian­na Ga­jad­har, of Ari­ma, af­ter up­hold­ing her law­suit for breach­es of her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

The ma­jor­i­ty of the com­pen­sa­tion rep­re­sents the $2,821,744.54 in salary and ben­e­fits she would have re­ceived had she not been im­prop­er­ly ter­mi­nat­ed by the PSC.

Ga­jad­har was award­ed $125,000 for the dis­tress and in­con­ve­nience she suf­fered and $150,000 for her loss of the chance of be­ing pro­mot­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od be­fore she was even­tu­al­ly re­in­stat­ed. Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so or­dered $350,000 in dam­ages to vin­di­cate the breach­es of Ga­jad­har’s rights.

“This Court is there­fore res­olute in its view that it must send a strong mes­sage that a breach of a cit­i­zen’s right to a fair hear­ing and the im­po­si­tion of a penal­ty ex­cept by the en­gage­ment of dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings, will not be tol­er­at­ed,” the judge said.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Ga­jad­har, who joined the T&T Prison Ser­vice in 2000, suf­fered a back in­jury and was ab­sent from du­ty for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods be­tween 2004 and 2006.

Ga­jad­har be­came preg­nant dur­ing the pe­ri­od and sought to re­sume her du­ties three months af­ter her daugh­ter was born in June 2006. She was barred by her su­per­vi­sor, who in­di­cat­ed that she could not re­sume her du­ties as she had not prop­er­ly ac­count­ed for the pe­ri­ods of her ab­sence.

While Ga­jad­har claimed she sub­mit­ted her sick leave and ma­ter­ni­ty leave cer­tifi­cates, the Com­mis­sion still de­clared that she had ef­fec­tive­ly re­signed from her post in June 2007, as she was ab­sent with­out leave from April 2006 to then.

Ga­jad­har filed a ju­di­cial re­view case against the Com­mis­sion, which was up­held by the High Court and the Court of Ap­peal, who or­dered it (the Com­mis­sion) to re­con­sid­er.

The Com­mis­sion re­con­sid­ered the is­sue in No­vem­ber 2017 and stood by its ini­tial de­ci­sion al­beit for a dif­fer­ent rea­son, an is­sue with Ga­jad­har’s ma­ter­ni­ty leave ap­pli­ca­tion un­der the Ma­ter­ni­ty Ben­e­fit Act.

Ga­jad­har filed an­oth­er law­suit against the sec­ond de­ci­sion, which was al­so up­held by the High Court and Court of Ap­peal.

The PSC con­sid­ered the case for the third time and re­in­stat­ed Ga­jad­har in April, last year. How­ev­er, she was not paid her out­stand­ing salary and ben­e­fits for the past 15 years as the PSC in­struct­ed the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er to do so by “clas­si­fy­ing” her ab­sence from du­ty.

When the case came up for hear­ing, the PSC ac­cept­ed that Ga­jad­har was owed her out­stand­ing salary and ben­e­fits but said she would on­ly be paid af­ter an au­dit was con­duct­ed.

In his judg­ment, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad crit­i­cised the PSC for its de­lay in pay­ing Ga­jad­har her out­stand­ing salary.

“The ev­i­dence sug­gests that the sys­tem adopt­ed by the Com­mis­sion was ei­ther gross­ly in­ef­fi­cient or de­signed to frus­trate the claimant,” he said.

“The ev­i­dent­ly lethar­gic ap­proach adopt­ed by the Com­mis­sion can­not be con­doned and the man­ner in which the claimant was treat­ed vi­o­lat­ed her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights,” he added.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said the case high­light­ed how ill-ad­vised de­ci­sions by ser­vice com­mis­sions can have an ad­verse im­pact on the lives of em­ploy­ees that fall un­der their purview.

As part of his de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered the PSC to pay Ga­jad­har’s le­gal costs for the case. He al­so grant­ed an ap­pli­ca­tion from the PSC for a 21-day stay of the judg­ment for the Com­mis­sion to de­cide whether it wish­es to ap­peal.

Ga­jad­har was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Kent Sam­lal, Jared Ja­groo and Natasha Bis­ram. The PSC was rep­re­sent­ed by Ian Ben­jamin, SC, Keisha Pros­per and Can­dace Alexan­der.