Privy Council orders Govt

THE Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) will soon be granted its radio broadcasting licence following yesterday’s ruling by the Privy Council ordering the Attorney General (AG) to grant the licence forthwith.

In a 19-page judgment, the AG was ordered to immediately ensure the granting of a FM radio broadcasting licence on an appropriate frequency to the Central Broadcasting Services Limited (CBSL), a company formed by the SDMS.

The AG was also ordered to pay the SDMS’s legal costs in both the local courts and the Privy Council, an amount which will easily cross the million-dollar mark. A release was promptly dispatched from the AG’s office yesterday, promising to “take immediate steps to provide the appellant” with a licence.

The appeal was heard before Lord Hoffman, Lord Hope, Lord Hutton, Lord Brown and Lord Mance.

They commended the local courts for the manner in which it had handled the case and found it “highly regrettable that the Court of Appeal was allowed to proceed under false premises.”

According to the judgment, there was “unexplained and unjustified discrimination” in the refusal to grant the CBSL a broadcasting licence in favour of the Citadel Limited application, whose application had been filed long after the CBSL’s.

The Maha Sabha and CBSL had applied for broadcasting licences in December 1999 and September 2000 respectively.

A search of the Companies Registry revealed that Citadel, whose directors were Louis Lee Sing and Anthony Lee Aping, had only been incorporated on August 28, 2001. Citadel applied for a licence on March 13, 2001.

The SDMS found this out in August 2002, prompting the organisation, whose application was still pending, to take legal action against the AG on the grounds of discrimination.

The judgment said there was a “conspicuous’ failure to process the application over three years by the Director of the Telecommunications Division.

The matter was first heard before Justice Carlton Best on January 19, 2004 and judgment was given on February 4.

The judge held that there had been unequal treatment against the CBSL and the SDMS, but considered it unnecessary to grant an order obliging the Cabinet to grant the organisation a licence. He ruled that only the CBSL was entitled to relief.

The SDMS wrote to the Prime Minister on February 11 asking him to grant the licence or be prepared to face the courts.

A response was given by Public Administration and Information Minister Dr Lenny Saith on February 25, assuring the SDMS that “the matter was receiving attention.” When no other response seemed forthcoming, the organisation lodged an appeal on February 26, which was heard in October of that same year.

In the judgment delivered on January 27, 2005, the Court of Appeal disagreed that only the CBSL could be entitled to relief. The majority of the appeal panel felt that both the SDMS and the CBSL had been subjected to inequality of treatment.

The matter was later taken to the Privy Council, where the CBSL was represented by attorneys Dr Fenton Ramsahoye SC and Anand Ramlogan. English lawyers Peter Knox and John Almeida appeared for the Attorney General.

See Pages 18, 21 and 22A