DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A teacher, whose pro­mo­tion was de­layed for over a decade, is set to re­ceive over half a mil­lion dol­lars in com­pen­sa­tion.

In Au­gust, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad par­tial­ly up­held Prakash Sug­rem­s­ingh’s ju­di­cial re­view law­suit against the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

He as­sessed the com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to Sug­rem­s­ingh dur­ing two hear­ings on Tues­day and Wednes­day.

Dur­ing the hear­ing on Tues­day, ac­count as­sis­tant Sasha Ma­hadeo, of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, was called up­on to tes­ti­fy over the salary ar­rears owed to Sug­rem­s­ingh.

Ma­hadeo sup­plied the court with in­for­ma­tion that showed that he was en­ti­tled to ap­prox­i­mate­ly $67,000, which rep­re­sents the dif­fer­ence be­tween the salary he should have re­ceived had he been prop­er­ly pro­mot­ed and what he ac­tu­al­ly re­ceived since 2010.

Ma­hadeo pro­vid­ed the in­for­ma­tion on the in­cre­ments he should have re­ceived up to 2019 dur­ing a hear­ing on Wednes­day.

The min­istry’s records showed that he was en­ti­tled to a lit­tle over $390,000.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered the State to pay two and a half per cent in­ter­est on the dam­ages for the pe­ri­od. He ex­pressed hope that what tran­spired in Sug­rem­s­ingh’s case would not re­cur.

“No one who is gain­ful­ly em­ployed in pub­lic ser­vice should be de­prived of their just dues and ben­e­fits...No one should have to go through the har­row­ing ex­pe­ri­ence to which he was sub­ject­ed to,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

In Sep­tem­ber 2000, Sug­rem­s­ingh was ap­point­ed to the post of As­sis­tant Teacher III and was placed at Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege in Pe­nal.

By 2010, Sug­rem­s­ingh ob­tained a Teacher’s Diplo­ma and a Bach­e­lor of Ed­u­ca­tion (Sec­ondary). He ap­plied to be pro­mot­ed to the per­ma­nent po­si­tion of Grad­u­ate Teacher III based on the qual­i­fi­ca­tions set in an agree­ment with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in Oc­to­ber 2006.

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing no re­sponse, he was in­formed by a cur­ricu­lum su­per­vi­sor that he would have to com­plete a bridg­ing pro­gramme, as his de­gree was in­suf­fi­cient to be con­sid­ered for pro­mo­tion. Al­though he com­plet­ed the pro­gramme in 2017 and the min­istry ac­knowl­edged he had ob­tained the nec­es­sary qual­i­fi­ca­tions, he was not in­vit­ed by the TSC to be in­ter­viewed.

In May last year, the com­mis­sion claimed Sug­rem­s­ingh was pro­mot­ed to the po­si­tion of Teacher 1 (Sec­ondary) with al­most dou­ble the salary he re­ceived as an as­sis­tant teacher in 2010.

How­ev­er, both the min­istry and Sug­rem­s­ingh claimed they were nev­er in­formed of the pro­mo­tion. Sug­rem­s­ingh al­so claimed he nev­er re­ceived the salary in­crease.

In de­ter­min­ing the law­suit, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that Sug­rem­s­ingh did not have a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that he would be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly pro­mot­ed. How­ev­er, he not­ed that the com­mis­sion’s de­lay in in­ter­view­ing Sug­rem­s­ingh was un­rea­son­able, as he point­ed out it had been in­ter­view­ing can­di­dates who had qual­i­fied be­fore him at a rate of five per month.

Sug­rem­s­ingh was rep­re­sent­ed by Ed­win Roop­nar­ine, and Jayade­vi Ar­joon. The TSC and the AG’s Of­fice were rep­re­sent­ed by Evan­na Welch, Na­toya Moore and Sara Mus­lim.