Suspended cop loses in Privy Council

A POLICE CONSTABLE with 27 years service yesterday lost his case before the Privy Council in which he claimed he had been treated unequally and unfairly and discriminated against by the Commissioner of Police. Mohanlal Bhagwandeen claimed that the Commissioner of Police discriminated against him by leaving him behind and promoting other constables to the rank of corporal. The Law Lords dismissed the constitutional motion filed by Bhagwandeen and ordered that he pay costs to the Attorney General. The Privy Council comprised Lords Bingham, Hope, Rodger, Carswell, and Baroness Hale. Dr Fenton Ramsahoye SC and Anand Ramlogan represented Bhagwandeen, while Englishman James Dingemans QC and senior State attorney Joy Balkaran appeared for the Attorney General.

The genesis of the long-drawn out and unhappy sequence of events involving Bhagwandeen and his career was an incident on March 19, 1994 when he arrested a man in respect of an allegation of rape. After the incident, Bhagwandeen and his wife Anjanie were charged with assault on the rape suspect. The charge was dismissed by the magistrate on June 30, 1995. On March 12, 1996, Bhagwandeen and his wife were arrested and charged on indictment with offences arising out of the same incident. Bhagwandeen was charged with common assault, both were charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, while his wife was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice by making a false report of rape and robbery against the suspect.

The case was adjourned on a number of occasions over the next two years and eventually on May 13, 1998, the charges were dismissed by the magistrate for want of prosecution. Bhagwandeen had been suspended since February 13, 1997, but after the dismissal of the charges, he was reinstated on September 30, 1998. The same charges were again brought against Bhagwandeen and his wife on July 12, 2000. He was suspended from duty in November 2000. He brought an application for judicial review of the decision to relay the criminal charges. The judicial review matter was heard on February 28, 2001 before Justice Joseph Tam, but judgment has not yet been given.

According to Lord Carswell, “their Lordships were not given any reasons for this remarkably long delay, and in the absence of an explanation they will not offer any comment on it, save to say that they trust that the issues of the appellant’s criminal liability and his suspension from duty will be speedily resolved after the disposition of the present proceedings. Bhagwandeen submitted that the revival of the criminal charges was evidence of the malice and ill will of the Commissioner of Police and relied on it as an element in claiming there was bias amounting to mala fides on his part. In order to demonstrate that he had been discriminated against, Bhagwandeen named a number of officers who had been promoted after periods of suspension.

The evidence filed on behalf of the Commissioner of Police showed that all but one of these officers had been reinstated for a materially longer time than Bhagwandeen before they were promoted. Bhagwandeen’s attorneys conceded in the TT Court of Appeal that the only serviceable comparator was Fitzgerald George who was promoted from corporal to sergeant some seven months and 25 days after reinstatement. Bhagwandeen won his constitutional motion before Justice Rajendra Narine in the High Cout who on January 31, 2001 ordered that the policeman be awarded the sum of $7,500 for breach of his constitutional rights under the constitution. The Commissioner of Police appealed and on September 30, 2002, the Court of Appeal reversed the High Court ruling and ordered Bhagwandeen to pay costs.