Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A High Court Judge has asked the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to look in­to the con­duct of for­mer In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) po­lit­i­cal leader Rekha Ramjit and her daugh­ter about ques­tion­able le­gal trans­ac­tions they pro­vid­ed to a now-de­ceased man of To­ba­go.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad made the re­quest on Fri­day as he up­held a law­suit brought by the man’s wid­ow, Ali­cia Camp­bell Rogers, against Ramjit and her daugh­ter Gi­na Ramjohn.

The law­suit cen­tred around a will they al­leged­ly pre­pared for Rogers’ hus­band Richard and the trans­fer of one of his prop­er­ties to Ramjit as pay­ment for le­gal ser­vices she pro­vid­ed be­fore his death in 2019.

De­liv­er­ing an oral judg­ment af­ter a tri­al, which be­gan ear­li­er this week and end­ed yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad agreed to set aside the will as well as the deed re­lat­ed to the prop­er­ty trans­fer based on the sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty he found con­cern­ing the prepa­ra­tion of both.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Rogers claimed that she was in a com­mon-law re­la­tion­ship with her hus­band and had a child to­geth­er in 2010 be­fore they even­tu­al­ly got mar­ried three years lat­er.

She claimed that her hus­band met Ramjit at the Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trates’ Court in late 2018.

Rogers ad­mit­ted that be­fore her hus­band passed away in Oc­to­ber 2019, Ramjit vis­it­ed their home on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions to de­liv­er le­gal doc­u­ments to him.

She claimed that af­ter her hus­band died, she learned of the ex­is­tence of a will, which named Ramjit as the ex­ecu­tor and on­ly left the cou­ple’s mat­ri­mo­ni­al home to her and her daugh­ter.

She al­so learned that one of the prop­er­ties, which her hus­band owned with his broth­er Robert, was trans­ferred to Ramjit on April 30, 2019, which was the same date that the will was pur­port­ed­ly pre­pared.

Through the law­suit, Rogers sought to in­val­i­date both le­gal doc­u­ments and force Ramjit to hand over the $774,000 in rent, she col­lect­ed from the prop­er­ties—joint­ly owned by her hus­band and broth­er-in-law as ex­ecu­tor—to her hus­band’s es­tate for even­tu­al dis­tri­b­u­tion to his ben­e­fi­cia­ries.

In her de­fence, Ramjit de­nied any wrong­do­ing in re­la­tion to the doc­u­ments and con­tend­ed that the prop­er­ty trans­fer was due to the in­abil­i­ty of Rogers’ hus­band to pay the $300,000 in le­gal fees she was owed for pur­su­ing a law­suit against a per­son who was squat­ting on an­oth­er of he and his broth­er’s prop­er­ties. That case was filed but is yet to go to tri­al.

In con­sid­er­ing the will, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad took is­sue with the fact that while both Rogers and Ramjit claimed that it was ex­e­cut­ed at the cou­ple’s home, the pur­port­ed wit­ness to the doc­u­ment claimed it was done at Ramjit’s of­fice in Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go.

“In the court’s view that ma­te­r­i­al in­con­sis­ten­cy caused a deeply-root­ed sense of sus­pi­cion,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

He al­so point­ed out that the hand­writ­ten in­struc­tions, which Ramjit claimed Rogers’ hus­band gave her about the will, were in­con­sis­tent with the typed ver­sion in terms of how his prop­er­ty in­ter­ests were to be dis­trib­uted to his ben­e­fi­cia­ries un­der the will.

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad agreed to set aside the will, he did not rule that Rogers’ hus­band died in­tes­tate as he point­ed out that he could not say con­clu­sive­ly that he (Rogers’ hus­band) did not have an­oth­er will pre­pared be­fore the one in con­tention in the case.

Deal­ing with the deed of con­veyance, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad took is­sue with the fact that while Rogers’ broth­er-in-law pur­port­ed­ly signed it on April 30, 2019, trav­el doc­u­ment ev­i­dence pro­vid­ed by Rogers showed that he had al­ready re­turned to the Unit­ed States by then.

He al­so re­ject­ed Ramjit’s claim that he for­got to date the doc­u­ment when he signed it and she sub­se­quent­ly en­tered the wrong date as he point­ed out that her daugh­ter pre­pared the doc­u­ment.

He al­so ques­tioned why Ramjit’s son, who served as a wit­ness to the sign­ing of the doc­u­ment, claimed that Rogers’ broth­er-in-law signed it on the date he was abroad.

Deal­ing with the le­gal fees which Ramjit claimed that the prop­er­ty sought to cov­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad stat­ed they were too high based on the na­ture of the le­gal work she per­formed.

“It is rather un­for­tu­nate that the court must say it forms the view that the fees ref­er­enced are ex­or­bi­tant and un­rea­son­able as they go against re­spon­si­bil­i­ties im­posed on at­tor­neys-at-law,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that at­tor­neys could hold clients’ prop­er­ty as se­cu­ri­ty for their le­gal fees, he not­ed that there was no leg­isla­tive or reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for trans­fer­ring clients’ prop­er­ty in lieu of pay­ment.

Stat­ing that the ev­i­dence in the case was both dis­ap­point­ing and dis­turb­ing, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said, “It showed how easy it is for at­tor­neys to ex­ploit and take ad­van­tage of cit­i­zens.”

He al­so sug­gest­ed that at­tor­neys should be made to un­der­go manda­to­ry pe­ri­od­ic ethics train­ing.

“The Law As­so­ci­a­tion must do a more proac­tive job in terms of ad­vis­ing cit­i­zens on the fees that should be charged by at­tor­neys,” he said.

He al­so lament­ed the im­pact Ramjit’s ac­tions, as a se­nior at­tor­ney, could have on pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the le­gal pro­fes­sion.

“It has been an un­pleas­ant ex­pe­ri­ence for the court to re­view,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

As part of his de­ci­sion in the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered Ramjit to hand over the rent she col­lect­ed to the Supreme Court Reg­is­trar. The mon­ey will be held in es­crow un­til af­ter Rogers’ hus­band’s es­tate is di­vid­ed.

Rogers was rep­re­sent­ed by Saman­tha Law­son, while Car­ol-Ann Bernard rep­re­sent­ed Ramjit. Ramjohn did not par­tic­i­pate in the case and was un­rep­re­sent­ed.