Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

With the four-year an­niver­sary of a ma­jor div­ing tragedy at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty ap­proach­ing, the fam­i­lies of three of the four vic­tims and the lone sur­vivor, Christo­pher Boodram, ap­pear no clos­er to re­ceiv­ing com­pen­sa­tion. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that neg­li­gence law­suits, filed on be­half of Boodram and the rel­a­tives of his de­ceased col­league Rishi Na­gas­sar against Paria and their for­mer em­ploy­er, Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (LM­CS), came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Christo­pher Sieuc­hand on Mon­day. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Jus­tice Sieuc­hand set dead­lines for fil­ing ev­i­dence and sub­mis­sions in the case.

While a tri­al date was not set, such is ex­pect­ed to be con­sid­ered when the case comes up for hear­ing on May 5 next year. 

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who, along with at­tor­ney Saira Lakhan, is rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of the duo’s oth­er de­ceased col­leagues, Fyzal Kur­ban and Yusuf Hen­ry, con­firmed that sim­i­lar cas­es were not filed by his clients. 

Ra­mad­har said that he and his team were still locked in ne­go­ti­a­tions with Paria for a set­tle­ment to avoid cost­ly and lengthy lit­i­ga­tion. 

He said that meet­ings were held over the past two weeks, and he and his team were await­ing a coun­ter­pro­pos­al from Paria of­fi­cials. 

“We don’t want to be sucked in­to that whirlpool of a time­line that is out of our con­trol,” Ra­mad­har said. 

“We do not want our clients to face the trau­ma of a tri­al,” he added. 

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, Boodram, Na­gas­sar, Hen­ry, Kur­ban, and Kaz­im Ali Ju­nior, whose fa­ther is a di­rec­tor of LM­CS, were per­form­ing main­te­nance work on an un­der­wa­ter off­shore pipeline off Berth #6 at Paria’s com­pound when the in­ci­dent oc­curred. 

The group were per­form­ing work when the hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber flood­ed, and they were sucked in. 

An in­jured Boodram man­aged to make his way through the pipeline and was res­cued. LM­CS of­fi­cials were blocked from at­tempt­ing to res­cue their col­leagues. 

Three of the divers’ bod­ies were re­cov­ered on Feb­ru­ary 28, while Na­gas­sar’s was re­cov­ered the fol­low­ing day. 

In the law­suit, lawyers for Nag­gasar’s fam­i­ly and Boodram, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, claimed that Paria and LM­CS failed to iden­ti­fy the po­ten­tial haz­ards as­so­ci­at­ed with the job and im­ple­ment mea­sures to en­sure an ef­fec­tive emer­gency re­sponse. 

The lawyers al­leged that Paria failed to en­sure that LM­CS had prop­er health and safe­ty equip­ment for their staff and could safe­ly and com­pe­tent­ly com­plete the job. 

They claimed that Paria and LM­CS failed to prop­er­ly clear the pipeline be­fore the divers were al­lowed to com­mence work. 

They quot­ed some of the find­ings of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) that was ap­point­ed by the gov­ern­ment to probe the in­ci­dent fol­low­ing pub­lic furore over the tragedy. 

Deal­ing with the loss and dam­age suf­fered by Boodram, his lawyers claimed that he still suf­fers men­tal an­guish. 

They stat­ed that he has been un­able to re­turn to work, as he suf­fers from post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD). 

They al­so claimed that he has suf­fered from neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, in­clud­ing am­ne­sia, since the in­ci­dent. 

They claimed that he lost out on over $400,000 in in­come since the in­ci­dent, as he pre­vi­ous­ly worked on a free­lance ba­sis with oth­er dive com­pa­nies and as a fish­er­man in his free time. 

His lawyers al­so claimed that he re­quires ther­a­peu­tic sup­port on a week­ly ba­sis for the next decade in or­der to im­prove, and the med­ical bills for such would be ap­prox­i­mate­ly $312,000. 

Ear­li­er this month, Boodram’s lawyers amend­ed his case to in­clude oth­er med­ical con­di­tions Boodram was di­ag­nosed with in a re­cent re­port from or­thopaedics spe­cial­ist Dr Rishi Jagdeo. 

The con­di­tions in­clude post-con­cus­sion syn­drome and erec­tile dys­func­tion. 

In Na­gas­sar’s case, his lawyers are claim­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the pain and suf­fer­ing he en­dured and $25,000 for loss of ex­pec­ta­tion of life. 

They are al­so claim­ing loss of earn­ings for the 46 year old based on the $9,800 month­ly salary he re­ceived from LM­CS as well as pri­vate work. 

They are al­so seek­ing $53,350, which rep­re­sents the mon­ey ex­pend­ed by his fam­i­ly for his fu­ner­al. 

As Na­gas­sar was the sole bread­win­ner in his fam­i­ly, his lawyers are claim­ing com­pen­sa­tion for his com­mon-law wife and his five-year-old daugh­ter, es­ti­mat­ed at an an­nu­al rate of $85,000 un­til he would have reached re­tire­ment.

LM­CS, through its lawyers Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Patrice Ay­ong-Chee, has is­sued an an­cil­lary claim against Paria, claim­ing that it should cov­er any li­a­bil­i­ty if the cas­es are suc­cess­ful. 

LM­CS has ad­mit­ted that it owes the divers’ fam­i­lies and Boodram com­pen­sa­tion un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act but claimed that pay­ments could not be made un­til its claim to its in­sur­er is de­ter­mined. 

The com­pa­ny claimed that it pur­sued lit­i­ga­tion over the is­sue when it made a claim short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent but did not re­ceive a re­sponse.  

Nag­gasar’s fam­i­ly and Boodram are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kent Sam­lal, Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell, Sue Ann De­osaran, and Natasha Bis­ram. 

More About the Case

Short­ly af­ter the tragedy, the Cab­i­net ini­tial­ly ap­point­ed a five-mem­ber team to in­ves­ti­gate.

How­ev­er, the move was scrapped due to pub­lic crit­i­cism, and a CoE was ap­point­ed. 

In its re­port, the com­mis­sion, chaired by King’s Coun­sel Jerome Lynch, pre­sent­ed sev­er­al dozen rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing oc­cu­pa­tion­al safe­ty and health charges. 

It al­so rec­om­mend­ed that Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, con­sid­er pros­e­cut­ing Paria for gross neg­li­gence manslaugh­ter. 

In Ju­ly last year, DPP Gas­pard wrote to for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for the ini­ti­a­tion of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine whether there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to pros­e­cute any per­son or en­ti­ty. 

Af­ter the CoE re­port was pub­lished, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty and Agency (OS­HA), through its Chief In­spec­tor Franz Bris­bane, brought 15 charges against the com­pa­nies, Paria’s then gen­er­al man­ag­er Mush­taq Mo­hammed, its ter­mi­nal op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Collin Piper, LM­CS, and its di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Snr. 

The fu­ture of par­al­lel pros­e­cu­tions may be in lim­bo based on a re­cent Privy Coun­cil rul­ing on the time lim­it for bring­ing such charges. 

Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen is sched­uled to give a rul­ing on the fu­ture of the pros­e­cu­tions on De­cem­ber 12.