The Hin­du Cred­it Union (HCU) Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Ltd and for­mer HCU pres­i­dent Har­ry Harnar­ine yes­ter­day moved one step clos­er to gain­ing con­trol of "U Ra­dio", af­ter they were suc­cess­ful at the Court of Ap­peal. Jus­tices Ivor Archie, Al­lan Men­don­ca and Pe­ter Ja­madar dis­missed the pro­ce­dur­al ap­peal brought by U Ra­dio op­er­a­tors Anand and In­grid Ram­per­sads­ingh and Up­ward Trend En­ter­tain­ment.

HCU Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Harnar­ine had filed a law­suit at the Port-of-Spain High Court seek­ing to en­force an agree­ment for the pur­chase of 75 per cent of Up­ward.

On De­cem­ber 12, 2010 Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in struck out a de­fence filed by the Ram­per­sads­inghs and Up­ward. Yes­ter­day's de­ci­sion af­firmed the rul­ing by the High Court judge. As a re­sult of this, when the mat­ter comes up for hear­ing to­mor­row be­fore Gob­in, HCU Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Harnar­ine will be seek­ing sum­ma­ry judg­ment in the case. HCU Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Harnar­ine had sued, seek­ing the en­force­ment of a $5 mil­lion deal in which they pur­chased 75 per cent of Up­ward.

Back then, the ra­dio sta­tion was reg­is­tered as "Ra­dio Shak­ti". HCU Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Harnar­ine claimed that fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment of a liq­uida­tor to the HCU, Up­ward re­moved the sta­tion from the HCU's Ch­agua­nas of­fice and changed its name. It was claimed that the agree­ment had not been en­forced. A court or­der en­forc­ing the agree­ment would see con­trol of the ra­dio sta­tion in the hands of HCU Com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­cause of its con­trol­ling in­ter­est. Farid Scoon and Dr West­ly De­bideen ap­peared for HCU Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Harnar­ine. An­tho­ny Man­war rep­re­sent­ed the ap­pel­lants.