Derek Achong

The State has been or­dered to pay al­most $260,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a re­tired po­lice of­fi­cer and busi­ness­man, who was ma­li­cious­ly pros­e­cut­ed for al­leged­ly steal­ing a num­ber of gas cylin­ders from a com­pa­ny in 2010. 

De­liv­er­ing an oral judg­ment late last week, High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well up­held Cha­tra­pal Lowkaran’s law­suit against the State as she ruled that po­lice did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to sus­pect that he was guilty of the of­fence. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Lowkaran and his wife Soli­na op­er­ate sev­er­al busi­ness­es in­clud­ing a gas dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny us­ing gas cylin­ders from orig­i­nal stock in­her­it­ed from his fa­ther. 

The cou­ple was un­of­fi­cial gas dis­trib­u­tors for In­dus­tri­al Gas Lim­it­ed (IGL) in the 1980s and they aligned them­selves with an­oth­er com­pa­ny af­ter IGL tem­porar­i­ly stopped con­duct­ing busi­ness with them. 

In June 2010, po­lice of­fi­cers, in­ves­ti­gat­ing a re­port of stolen cylin­ders from IGL’s premis­es at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in Savonet­ta, ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at a prop­er­ty in San Juan, owned by his moth­er-in-law, where he stored some of his gas cylin­ders. 

Lowkaran and his moth­er-in-law were ar­rest­ed af­ter sev­er­al cylin­ders with IGL mark­ings were found. 

His moth­er-in-law was even­tu­al­ly re­leased, while Lowkaran was de­tained overnight and charged. 

Lowkaran made sev­er­al court ap­pear­ances be­fore the charges were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed in De­cem­ber 2013. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well ruled that the po­lice of­fi­cers, who ar­rest­ed and charged Lowkaran, did not do suf­fi­cient in­ves­ti­ga­tions based on the fact that IGL had a pol­i­cy of al­low­ing per­sons to rent and keep cylin­ders. 

“The fact that IGL was stamped on the cylin­ders was not a suf­fi­cient ba­sis for sus­pect­ing that they were stolen,” she said. 

“In­stead, what was re­quired was an in­ven­to­ry of the se­r­i­al num­bers or oth­er unique iden­ti­fiers of the al­leged miss­ing cylin­ders which could be com­pared with those lo­cat­ed,” she added. 

While Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well found that there was a lack of rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to sus­pect that the cylin­ders were stolen, she in­ferred mal­ice on the part of the of­fi­cers based on the ev­i­dence in the case. 

“This is so be­cause, armed with that back­ground knowl­edge, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer ought to have con­duct­ed prop­er checks to as­cer­tain ex­act­ly what cylin­ders, if any, were miss­ing from IGL, whether they cor­re­lat­ed with any found at Hazroon Ali’s home, and if so, whether any of these were among the cylin­ders the claimant may have hon­est­ly re­ceived in his ca­pac­i­ty as an agent for IGL. None of this was done,” Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said. 

In as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to Lowkaran, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well con­sid­ered that the charges would have had an ad­verse ef­fect on his rep­u­ta­tion. 

“In the present case, in­jury to rep­u­ta­tion is sig­nif­i­cant, as the of­fence with which the claimant was charged, was very se­ri­ous and in­volves dis­hon­esty; the claimant be­ing a re­tired po­lice of­fi­cer and his pros­e­cu­tion be­ing wide­ly pub­li­cised,” she said. 

Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well or­dered a lit­tle over $110,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages which in­clud­ed in­ter­est and  $63,350 in spe­cial dam­ages which rep­re­sent­ed the le­gal fees he in­curred in de­fend­ing the crim­i­nal charges be­fore they were dis­missed. 

She or­dered $35,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to high­light her view that his pros­e­cu­tion was un­rea­son­able and op­pres­sive. The State was al­so or­dered to pay $42,058.08 in le­gal costs for the law­suit. 

Lowkaran was rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh, De­siree Sankar, Ka­ri­na Sing­hand Ke­ston Lewis.

Mon­i­ca Smith, Sav­it­ri Ma­haraj and Chantelle Le Gall rep­re­sent­ed the State. 

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