Sascha Wil­son

Ra­dio an­nounc­er Hans­ley Ad­jod­ha will be called up­on to put for­ward his de­fence on May 22 against sev­er­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion charges against him and his com­pa­ny.Se­nior Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan over­ruled a no-case sub­mis­sion by Ad­jod­ha's at­tor­neys Kevin Rati­ram and Im­ran Khan yes­ter­day, clear­ing the way for him to an­swer the charges.

Ad­jod­ha, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of com­pa­ny 21st Cen­tu­ry Arts and En­ter­tain­ment, and Lawrence Cole, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Life Ra­dio, were charged by the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TATT) in 2009 for al­leged­ly breach­ing the TATT Act.Eleven charges were laid against 21 Cen­tu­ry Arts, four against Ad­jod­ha and three against Cole.

The State, rep­re­sent­ed by spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Sean Caz­abon and at­tor­ney Natasha Bis­ram, dis­con­tin­ued two of the charges. It lat­er closed its case and the de­fence made a no case sub­mis­sion.Yes­ter­day Cole was not present in court for the mag­is­trate's de­ci­sion but Rati­ram sought and was grant­ed per­mis­sion for Cole to ap­pear through him.The mag­is­trate ad­journed the mat­ter to give the de­fence time to pre­pare its case.

The charges al­lege Ad­jod­ha, aid­ing and abet­ted Life Ra­dio 99.5 FM Ltd in op­er­at­ing ra­dio trans­mit­ting equip­ment and ra­dio com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices with­out a li­cence from TATT.Ad­jho­da is al­so charged with fail­ing to pay con­ces­sion fees from 2007 to 2009 and fail­ing to sub­mit de­tails of an­nu­al rev­enues and in­for­ma­tion re­quired by TATT re­lat­ing to broad­cast ser­vices.

Cole was charged with pro­vid­ing broad­cast ser­vices and equip­ment and ra­dio com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices with­out a li­cence and con­ces­sion as re­quired by TATT in 2006 and 2009.