Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The own­er of a pop­u­lar so­cial me­dia news page has been or­dered to pay over $400,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pal for defama­tion. 

De­liv­er­ing an oral judg­ment this week, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad up­held the case brought by Spring Vil­lage Hin­du School prin­ci­pal Su­san Ra­goo­nanan against An­to­nio Ran­jits­ingh, who op­er­ates Tri­ni Crime News TT. 

Ram­per­sad ruled that Ran­jits­ingh de­famed Ra­goo­nanan in a se­ries of posts on dif­fer­ent so­cial me­dia plat­forms, in­clud­ing Face­book, In­sta­gram and Tik­Tok be­tween June and Au­gust last year. 

While the defam­a­to­ry state­ments can­not be re­pub­lished, the posts es­sen­tial­ly at­tacked her pro­fes­sion­al in­tegri­ty, char­ac­ter and fit­ness to hold the of­fice. 

In her court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ra­goo­nanan’s lawyers Bernelle-Joy La-Fou­cade, Gabriel Glanville and Al­isha Pon­am­bal­am point­ed out that their client served as prin­ci­pal of the pri­ma­ry school for 17 years, af­ter over two decades of a dis­tin­guished ca­reer as a teacher.

“The sting of the pub­li­ca­tions is of the gravest kind, im­put­ing crim­i­nal­ly ad­ja­cent and child-safe­ty-re­lat­ed mis­con­duct, and di­rect­ly at­tacks the claimant’s pro­fes­sion­al fit­ness,” they said. 

“These un­found­ed and sen­sa­tion­alised claims are ma­li­cious, mis­lead­ing and demon­stra­bly false,” they added. 

The lawyers claimed that the “false and ma­li­cious” posts, which were wide­ly shared and com­ment­ed on, caused Ra­goo­nanan sig­nif­i­cant dis­tress.

“The na­ture of the claimant’s po­si­tion re­quires the high­est de­gree of trust, con­fi­dence and re­spect in her abil­i­ty to up­hold and car­ry out her du­ties as a prin­ci­pal,” they said. 

“Any blem­ish to her good name and rep­u­ta­tion puts her life’s work and dis­tin­guished ca­reer in­to dis­re­pute and se­vere jeop­ardy,” they added. 

They claimed that af­ter they threat­ened le­gal ac­tion over the posts, they (the posts) were briefly re­moved.

The posts were then re­pub­lished with a cap­tion crit­i­cis­ing Ra­goo­nanan’s de­ci­sion to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion. 

Her lawyers claimed that he al­so sent voice notes to them, dis­re­gard­ing the le­gal claim. 

Ra­goo­nanan’s lawyers ob­tained an in­ter­im in­junc­tion over the posts while the sub­stan­tive case was be­ing con­sid­ered. 

In Feb­ru­ary, they suc­cess­ful­ly pur­sued con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings against Ran­jits­ingh af­ter the posts were not re­moved and con­tin­ued to be cir­cu­lat­ed. 

Ran­jits­ingh re­ceived a 14-day sus­pend­ed prison sen­tence that would take ef­fect if fur­ther defam­a­to­ry posts against Ra­goo­nanan are made. 

In up­hold­ing the sub­stan­tive case, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad or­dered Ran­jits­ingh to pay $360,000 in dam­ages and $57,500 in le­gal costs. 

He al­so grant­ed a per­ma­nent in­junc­tion re­strain­ing Ran­jits­ingh from re­pub­lish­ing the defam­a­to­ry state­ments. 

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad is­sued a 30-day stay of ex­e­cu­tion on the dam­ages, giv­ing Ran­jits­ingh a month to pay or ap­peal the rul­ing.