For­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Nizam Mo­hammed yes­ter­day chal­lenged the le­gal­i­ty of a mag­is­trate's de­ci­sion to con­vict a po­lice of­fi­cer for wil­ful­ly in­ter­rupt­ing her court.Mo­hammed made the sub­mis­sion yes­ter­day as he rep­re­sent­ed Cpl Dar­ryl Ram­di­al, 36, of Table­land, who was ar­rest­ed and con­vict­ed of the sum­ma­ry of­fence of wil­ful­ly in­ter­rupt­ing the Princes Town Sec­ond Court while Mag­is­trate Nali­ni Singh was pre­sid­ing on Mon­day.Mo­hammed con­tend­ed that the charge, which, he said, was "akin to a con­tempt of court," was "so atro­cious, so vi­o­lent, so de­spi­ca­ble that it can­not pro­ceed."He called on Singh to re­verse her or­der.

Singh would de­liv­er her rul­ing on Fri­day. She grant­ed Ram­di­al, a fa­ther of two, $10,000 own bail af­ter he com­plained of feel­ing un­well. He was warned to re­turn to court.Mo­hammed said the mat­ter should be dis­missed and Ram­di­al should be freed.He con­tend­ed his client's fun­da­men­tal rights were in­fringed when he was not in­formed of the charge laid against him, he was de­nied his right to coun­sel and was con­vict­ed with­out hav­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to mount a de­fence.How­ev­er, Singh con­tend­ed that a de­fence was not nec­es­sary since the of­fence was "com­mit­ted in the eyes of the court."Ram­di­al was ar­rest­ed af­ter he al­leged­ly protest­ed when the court award­ed him $1,000 com­pen­sa­tion af­ter he was in­jured on Sun­day at his home dur­ing a birth­day "cook-up" with fam­i­ly and friends.

The of­fi­cer, whose left eye was black, swollen and had a ban­dage over a wound, was in­jured by a man who at­tacked him at his home.Mo­hammed said Ram­di­al was forced to en­dure four pun­ish­ments aris­ing out of the mag­is­trate's de­ci­sion which has af­fect­ed his men­tal and health state.Pri­or to the mat­ter be­ing called, Singh, who or­dered Ram­di­al be re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody, ex­pressed out­rage that the of­fi­cer was not tak­en to Re­mand Yard Mon­day evening. She said he was seen smok­ing a cig­a­rette out­side the court."Is this a state where the po­lice of­fi­cers are above the law? she asked.She said were it a mem­ber of the pub­lic that per­son would have rode the prison truck.

"An of­fi­cer with 14 years ser­vice comes and stands in the mid­dle of this court rab­bling like he was in a mar­ket ne­go­ti­at­ing the price of pump­kin."I ex­plained to him that there is a process of ap­peal. This is not a kan­ga­roo court. It is not 'dol­ly house' I am play­ing here. This is a court of law," she said.She asked court pros­e­cu­tor, Sgt Ram­path, to ex­plain what it meant to be re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody. He said he did not know what hap­pened on Mon­day.Mo­hammed knocked the mag­is­trate's com­ments, de­scrib­ing them as "in­ap­pro­pri­ate and high­ly prej­u­di­cial against my client."