Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Em­bat­tled for­mer Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er is em­broiled once more in an­oth­er le­gal con­tro­ver­sy, this time be­tween the Ch­agua­nas Ven­dors As­so­ci­a­tion and the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion (CBC).

The Ven­dors' As­so­ci­a­tion, sup­port­ed by Warn­er, filed for ju­di­cial re­view of the CBC's de­ci­sion to re­nege on its promise to build a ven­dors' mall at the old Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre site and to not move the ven­dors from that site.

The mat­ter was heard for the first time be­fore Jus­tice James Aboud in the San Fer­nan­do High Court yes­ter­day.

At­tor­ney Lester Chari­ah, di­rect­ed by at­tor­ney Rekha Ramjit, ap­peared on be­half of the ven­dors, with at­tor­ney Kelvin Ramkissoon ap­pear­ing on be­half of the de­fen­dants, the CBC.

It is the ven­dors' claim that they were giv­en le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion by the cor­po­ra­tion, through Warn­er, that they would re­main at the old Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre com­pound where a ven­dors mall would be built to ac­com­mo­date them prop­er­ly.

How­ev­er, in their de­fence, Ramkissoon told the court that the CBC had no records of mak­ing any such promise to the ven­dors.

Ear­li­er this year in the Port-of-Spain High Court, Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones grant­ed an in­junc­tion pre­vent­ing the CBC from re­lo­cat­ing ven­dors from the health cen­tre com­pound to the old Globe cin­e­ma com­pound in Ch­agua­nas.

Warn­er, who was present in court yes­ter­day, is named as a wit­ness in the mat­ter and has sworn af­fi­davits in sup­port of the ven­dors.

Ch­agua­nas may­or, Gopaul Boodan, and for­mer May­or, Or­lan­do Nages­sar, were al­so present in court.

Ramkissoon asked the court to strike out sev­er­al sen­tences of Warn­er's af­fi­davits and asked to be grant­ed leave to re­spond to Warn­er's state­ments that he con­tract­ed a pri­vate ar­chi­tec­tur­al firm to draw up plans for a six-storey ven­dor's mall at the health cen­tre site.

Warn­er's af­fi­davit fur­ther stat­ed he was au­tho­rised to seek pri­vate fund­ing to build the ven­dors' mall.

Ramkissoon main­tained that ev­i­dence was new and was grant­ed time to re­spond by Aboud. The mat­ter was ad­journed to Oc­to­ber 9 when Warn­er will be re­quired to at­tend for cross-ex­am­i­na­tion.