Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion will go ahead as sched­uled on Sun­day.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, High Court Judge Karen Reid dis­missed an in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion brought by Pun­dits Hard­eo Ma­haraj and Teka Sam­nar­ine against act­ing SDMS pres­i­dent gen­er­al Kr­ish­na Ram­bal­ly, act­ing sec­re­tary gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj, Dhar­ma­charya Dr Ram­per­sad Paras­ram, Pres­i­dent of the Pan­dits’ Parishad Navin Ma­haraj, and Sec­re­tary of the Pan­dits’ Parishad Rishi Ma­haraj.

Jus­tice Reid’s de­ci­sion was a dou­ble de­feat for the pun­dits as she al­so dis­missed their sub­stan­tive law­suit against the of­fi­cials due to their lack of stand­ing to pur­sue it.

Ac­cord­ing to their court fil­ings, the pun­dits are claim­ing that un­der the SDMS’s con­sti­tu­tion, its na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive con­sists of 50 mem­bers.

Thir­ty one mem­bers, com­pris­ing the pres­i­dent gen­er­al and sec­re­tary gen­er­al, and 29 or­di­nary mem­bers, are elect­ed every five years at the Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates in Sep­tem­ber.

The re­main­ing 12 mem­bers are nom­i­nat­ed by the pres­i­dent gen­er­al and gen­er­al sec­re­tary af­ter their elec­tion.

The last elec­tion oc­curred in Sep­tem­ber 2018, when Pun­dit Utham Ma­haraj was elect­ed pres­i­dent gen­er­al and Dhar­ma­charya and long-serv­ing sec­re­tary gen­er­al Sat­narayan Ma­haraj was elect­ed.

Utham Ma­haraj passed away in No­vem­ber 2018, while Sat­narayan Ma­haraj died in No­vem­ber 2019.

The pun­dits are con­tend­ing that un­der the SDMS con­sti­tu­tion, Ram­bal­ly, as the then first vice pres­i­dent could have act­ed as pres­i­dent gen­er­al un­til an elec­tion at the Sep­tem­ber Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates in 2019.

They al­so claimed that Paras­ram could not be elect­ed in con­sul­ta­tion with the Pan­dits’ Parishad as the con­sti­tu­tion re­quires that the Dhar­ma­charya be a mem­ber of the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive, which he (Dr Paras­ram) was not.

They claimed that an elec­tion for Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al should have tak­en place in Sep­tem­ber 2020 but Vi­jay Ma­haraj took up his fa­ther’s va­cant po­si­tion.

They al­so claimed that they were de­nied par­tic­i­pa­tion in the elec­tion for the Pan­dits’ Parishad, which took place in Ju­ly in­stead of in Au­gust as is tra­di­tion­al­ly done be­fore the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion.

Through the in­junc­tion, the pun­dits were seek­ing or­ders bar­ring the de­fen­dants from host­ing the elec­tion and con­tin­u­ing to act in the ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions pend­ing the out­come of a sub­stan­tive law­suit.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Reid ruled that the process used for the up­com­ing elec­tion could not be fault­ed based on the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion.

Deal­ing with Ram­bal­ly, Jus­tice Reid not­ed that al­though there were no nom­i­na­tions be­fore the 2019 Sep­tem­ber Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates, he was prop­er­ly in­stalled in the post dur­ing the meet­ing.

“This is es­pe­cial­ly so since that body is the on­ly body con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly en­ti­tled to elect a nom­i­nee to the po­si­tion,” she said.

In ref­er­ence to Vi­jay Ma­haraj, Jus­tice Reid ruled that al­though he was not prop­er­ly elect­ed af­ter his fa­ther’s death, his act­ing in the po­si­tion could not be fault­ed.

“I would de­cline to grant an in­ter­im in­junc­tion on this ba­sis since he has been pub­licly act­ing in this role since 2019 with­out chal­lenge and, the Claimant’s un­due de­lay in mount­ing a chal­lenge is fa­tal to their ap­pli­ca­tion in this re­gard,” Jus­tice Reid said.

In terms of the al­le­ga­tions over the elec­tion of the Pan­dits’ Parishad, Jus­tice Reid said the duo pre­sent­ed no ev­i­dence to prop­er­ly chal­lenge it.

“Fi­nal­ly, I find that the claimant’s spu­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of fraud­u­lent con­duct on the part of the De­fen­dants are not made out on their ev­i­dence,” she said.

In as­sess­ing whether the duo should still be al­lowed to pur­sue their sub­stan­tive case, Jus­tice Reid ruled that while they are reg­is­tered mem­bers of the Ex­change Branch, it (the branch) was not reg­is­tered as a fi­nan­cial branch of the SDMS.

Jus­tice Reid al­so ruled that it would be wrong to grant them in­ter­im re­lief days be­fore the elec­tion.

“Com­ing as they are now on the eve of the elec­tion is man­i­fest­ly un­just, not on­ly to the de­fen­dants but to the SDMS and their mem­bers as a whole, who are en­ti­tled to con­duct their con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due elec­tion,” she said.

The pun­dits were rep­re­sent­ed by Vashist Ma­haraj, Ne­han­da Pierre, Vani­ta Ram­roop, Sunil Seecha­ran, Amit Jag­ger­nauth and Anand Ma­habir. The act­ing ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers were rep­re­sent­ed by Rishi Dass, SC, Vi­jaya Ma­haraj and Varin Gopaul-Go­sine.