Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams on Monday was ordered to promote 32 sergeants to the rank of inspector after they successfully petitioned the High Court claiming that they were illegally bypassed.
In an order before San Fernando High Court judge Margaret Mohammed, Williams was ordered to retroactively promote the officers as of December 19, 2012. Failure to do so she said was unlawful, illegal and of no effect pursuant to the Judicial Review Act.
She added it was unconstitutional to deny the promotions on the basis of the enjoyment of property, the protection of the law and equal treatment from a public authority.
"The claimants are to be paid all arrears of salaries, benefits and allowances due to them with effect from December, 19, 2012 and damages," Mohammed said, adding the legal cost for the judicial review be met by the State as well as the assessment of damages be done by a Master in Chambers.
The officers, who were represented by Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, Alvin Ramroop, Kingsley Walesby and Ronnie Bissessar, claimed the merit list system used to promote some of their colleagues over them was unfair, given that the same system previously had them higher on the merit list and thereby in line for promotion. Both the State and Williams did not file any objection to the lawsuit.
The officers claimed while some of them had been acting as inspectors, failure to promote them led to financial stress.
The officers used previous cases which was brought against Williams to show that they were unlawfully overlooked.
They argued that in 2012 the court ruled that an order of merit list was to be rejected. However, 51 sergeants who had been promoted on the list were not demoted.
Furthermore the officers argued that in a new merit list the following year some of the promoted officers were ranked lower than them, effectively making some of the 51 officers junior to the bypassed 32 sergeants.
Salary structure
ALLOWANCES /SALARIES SERGEANTS INSPECTORS
Monthly average salary $9,629.00 $11,353.00
Monthly cost of living allowance $145.00 $145.00
Monthly house allowance (married officer) $1,850.00 $1,850.00
Monthly house allowance (single) $1,445.00 $1,445.00
Monthly motor vehicle upkeep allowance - $2,000.00
Kilometric allowance - $2.50 per km but limited to
(officer uses his/her own personal vehicle) 9,656 km per annum.
Commuting (per week) $1,041.53 $1,208.61
Overtime (per hour) $86.79 $100.72
Promoted officers
Sgt 12004 Bertrand Alleyne
Sgt 13044 Clive Alvarez
Sgt 11992 Mathew Andrews
Sgt 12350 Mark Balkaran
Sgt 11878 Kester Billy
Sgt 10789 Ashook Birbal
Sgt 12587 Nigel Brich
Sgt 14118 Kim Bucchan
Sgt 12165 Carlos Carr
Sgt 12418 Stephen Elliott
Sgt 11716 Andy Farrell
Sgt 12339 Eric Farris
Sgt 11294 Geddes Foncette
Sgt 11698 Glendon Foncette
Sgt 12542 Roger Ghool
Sgt 12434 Alva Gordon
Sgt 11952 Anthony Harford
Sgt 11853 Shawn Harry
Sgt 12621 Joseph Jaikaran
Sgt 11095 Curtis Kerr
Sgt 12316 George Laldeo
Sgt 12003 Andrew Lawrence
Sgt 13020 Arlene Layne
Sgt 11237 Alimudeen Mohammed
Sgt 12851 Mulchan Nanan
Sgt 13462 Peter Ramdeen
Sgt 12577 Dhanrajh Ramesar
Sgt 12805 Khelawan Ramsook
Sgt 13178 Andrew Reuben
Sgt 13607 Rishi Singh
Sgt 12158 Sean Sookram
Sgt 14478 Andy Teewarie