Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A mo­tor ve­hi­cle in­spec­tor with the Trans­port Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port has lost his law­suit over be­ing com­mit­ted to stand tri­al on two charges over an al­leged scheme to trans­fer a stolen ve­hi­cle. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment on Tues­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad dis­missed Valmi­ki Ram­jat­tan’s ju­di­cial re­view law­suit against the de­ci­sion tak­en by Mag­is­trate Adia Mo­hammed in his case. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said: “This court can find no ba­sis up­on which the ren­dered de­ci­sions by the In­tend­ed Re­spon­dent (Mo­hammed) should be quashed as there was ev­i­dence up­on which the de­ci­sions ef­fect­ed could have been made.” 

Ram­jat­tan was or­dered to pay the le­gal costs in­curred by the State in de­fend­ing the case. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case in late 2019, Ram­jat­tan of Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, and two of his col­leagues from the di­vi­sion were charged along­side three civil­ians for the scheme. 

Ram­jat­tan was charged with con­spir­ing with his co-ac­cused to de­fraud the di­vi­sion and with mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice. Pros­e­cu­tors closed their case against the group dur­ing a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry be­fore Mag­is­trate Mo­hammed in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court in No­vem­ber, last year. 

Ram­jat­tan’s lawyers pre­sent­ed a no-case sub­mis­sion, in which they claimed that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence link­ing him to the crimes.

Mag­is­trate Mo­hammed even­tu­al­ly dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion and com­mit­ted Ram­jat­tan to stand tri­al for the charges. 

In the le­gal chal­lenge be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, Ram­jat­tan is con­tend­ing that pros­e­cu­tors did not prove the es­sen­tial el­e­ments of the con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud of­fence as there was no ev­i­dence that he (Ram­jat­tan) was part of an ex­press agree­ment to de­fraud or com­mit­ted any crim­i­nal acts. 

“In the case of the ap­pli­cant, the on­ly al­leged crim­i­nal act com­mit­ted by him was that he signed the said form, sig­ni­fy­ing that he had ver­i­fied the chas­sis num­ber on the said ve­hi­cle,” his lawyers said. 

“More­over, the al­leged act—that the ap­pli­cant signed ver­i­fy­ing the chas­sis num­ber of the said ve­hi­cle—is not a crim­i­nal act,” they added. 

They made sim­i­lar claims in re­la­tion to the oth­er charge. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad had to con­sid­er whether Ram­jat­tan should have been al­lowed to pur­sue it. 

Mag­is­trate Mo­hammed’s le­gal team con­tend­ed that it (the case) was un­nec­es­sary as Ram­jat­tan could have re­quest­ed that the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) quash the in­dict­ments against him once they (the in­dict­ments) are filed. 

Stat­ing that there is no statu­to­ry frame­work for the al­ter­na­tive re­lief sug­gest­ed, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said, “It is al­so ev­i­dent that the Of­fice of the DPP re­sist­ed the ap­pli­cant’s no-case sub­mis­sions and it is plau­si­ble to con­clude that the ex­ist­ing sta­tus quo would be like­ly un­al­tered even if the DPP was writ­ten to.” 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so lament­ed the peren­ni­al de­lays in the fil­ing of in­dict­ments, which are need­ed for cas­es to be trans­ferred from the Mag­is­trates’ Courts to the High Court up­on the com­ple­tion of pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries. 

“The sit­u­a­tion as out­lined is un­ac­cept­able and it is ev­i­dent that a rig­or­ous re­vis­it and re­vamp of ex­ist­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al process­es, poli­cies, and pro­ce­dures are ur­gent­ly re­quired,” he said. 

“The time for di­a­logue has end­ed, mean­ing­ful ac­tion, en­gage­ment, trans­paren­cy, and ac­count­abil­i­ty is des­per­ate­ly re­quired to im­prove the dis­pen­sa­tion of jus­tice in the best in­ter­est of all cit­i­zens of this Re­pub­lic,” he added. 

Ram­jat­tan was rep­re­sent­ed by Michael Rooplal, Kristy Mo­han, Vishar Gir­war, and Gisanne Ramjit, while Ra­jiv Per­sad, SC, Avion Ro­main, Lau­ra Per­sad, and Jus­tay Guer­ra rep­re­sent­ed Mag­is­trate Mo­hammed.