Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $65,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a long-stand­ing firearms deal­er, over a pro­tract­ed po­lice ex­er­cise in 2022 which re­sult­ed in his busi­ness be­ing closed for sev­er­al weeks.

High Court Judge Devin­dara Ram­per­sad made the or­der on Mon­day as he most­ly up­held a law­suit brought by Towfeek Ali and his com­pa­ny Firearms Train­ing In­sti­tute Lim­it­ed.

In the ju­di­cial re­view law­suit, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad was asked to de­ter­mine the na­ture of the ex­er­cise, which be­gan in ear­ly Oc­to­ber 2022.

While the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has con­tend­ed that the ex­er­cise was an in­spec­tion un­der Sec­tion 26 of the Firearms Act, Ali and his com­pa­ny have claimed that it was an im­per­mis­si­ble "au­dit" based on pur­port­ed state­ments made by the po­lice of­fi­cers, who con­duct­ed it with­out a search war­rant.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad dis­missed Ali and the com­pa­ny's com­plaint over the du­ra­tion of the in­spec­tion of its reg­is­ter.

He point­ed out that the in­spec­tion un­der the leg­is­la­tion is a process, not an in­stan­ta­neous act.

"A deal­er­ship hold­ing thou­sands of firearms and rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, whose Reg­is­ters had not been in­spect­ed for sev­en years, can­not be ver­i­fied in an af­ter­noon, and the mere fact that this ex­er­cise oc­cu­pied thir­teen work­ing days does not, with­out more, take it out­side the sec­tion," Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.

"Of­fi­cers may re­main for such time as ver­i­fi­ca­tion rea­son­ably re­quires, may make rea­son­able in­quiries aris­ing out of the Reg­is­ter and the stock, and may re­quest sight of doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing im­port doc­u­men­ta­tion, which bear on the ac­cu­ra­cy of the Reg­is­ter," he added.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that the in­spec­tion pow­er had lim­its which were breached in Ali and the com­pa­ny's case.

"The pow­er does not ex­tend to search, seizure, the re­moval of Reg­is­ters or doc­u­ments from the premis­es, the oc­cu­pa­tion or con­trol of the premis­es, the re­stric­tion of ac­cess to them, the clo­sure or cur­tail­ment of the deal­er's busi­ness, the de­ten­tion or com­pelled at­ten­dance of any per­son, or the com­pul­sion of the deal­er to pro­duce or cer­ti­fy doc­u­ments," Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad stat­ed that the of­fi­cers over­stepped in re­strict­ing ac­cess to the premis­es, and con­duct­ing a dai­ly walk-through in Ali and an em­ploy­ee's pres­ence.

He al­so re­ject­ed claims that Ali es­sen­tial­ly cer­ti­fied the of­fi­cers' act­ing in ex­cess of their pow­er by agree­ing to the ac­tion.

Ques­tion­ing the fail­ure of the of­fi­cers to get Ali to sign a doc­u­ment de­tail­ing his pur­port­ed ac­cep­tance, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said: "An of­fi­cer who ap­pre­ci­ates that he is act­ing be­yond his statu­to­ry pow­er and is pro­ceed­ing by con­sent has every rea­son to record that con­sent, and no rea­son what­so­ev­er not to."

"Go­ing along with some­thing is not the same as agree­ing to it, and it was not enough to sup­ply the au­thor­i­ty which the Act with­holds," he added.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad is­sued a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over the un­law­ful ac­tions by the of­fi­cers dur­ing the ex­er­cise.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for Ali and his com­pa­ny, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad on­ly award­ed $20,000 in nom­i­nal dam­ages for tres­pass to its goods and the eco­nom­ic loss­es suf­fered by the ef­fec­tive clo­sure dur­ing the in­spec­tion pe­ri­od.

He not­ed that Ali and the com­pa­ny had failed to pro­vide ev­i­dence quan­ti­fy­ing the loss­es it suf­fered dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad or­dered $15,000 in dam­ages for Ali's de­ten­tion dur­ing the pe­ri­od. While he found that Ali had been ef­fec­tive­ly false­ly im­pris­oned, he sug­gest­ed that the com­pen­sa­tion was ap­pro­pri­ate as Ali was not im­pris­oned or in con­tin­u­ous cus­tody dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

"Ali was not hand­cuffed, phys­i­cal­ly re­strained, placed in a cell or ex­press­ly told he was un­der ar­rest," he said.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad al­so or­dered $30,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to mark his dis­ap­proval of the con­duct of the of­fi­cers in the case.

He was not re­quired to or­der the re­turn of the items seized dur­ing the ex­er­cise, in­clud­ing com­put­ers, doc­u­ments and Ali's per­son­al firearms, as the items were giv­en back while the case was be­ing de­ter­mined.

The Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er was or­dered to pay 75 per cent of the le­gal costs in­curred by Ali and his com­pa­ny for pur­su­ing the law­suit.

Ali and the com­pa­ny were rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Be­har­ry­lal, KC, Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, Asif Ho­sein-Shah, and Anan­da Ram­per­sad.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the of­fi­cers in­volved in the ex­er­cise were rep­re­sent­ed by Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, Tama­ra Toolsie, Am­ri­ta Ram­sook, and Vin­cent Jar­dine.