The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has lost its ap­peal over the de­ci­sion of a High Court Judge to grant in­ter­im re­lief in a con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suit brought by a firearm deal­er, who is fac­ing il­le­gal firearm pos­ses­sion charges.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment in a pro­ce­dur­al ap­peal yes­ter­day, Ap­pel­late Judge Vasheist Kokaram and Mal­colm Holdip dis­missed the ap­peal against Brent Thomas and his com­pa­ny Spe­cial­ist Shoot­ers Train­ing Cen­tre Lim­it­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, in Oc­to­ber, last year, Thomas, 61, of Mar­aval, was slapped with sev­en charges for pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed weapons and ex­plo­sives.

The charges arose af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ed raids on Thomas’ home and busi­ness.

Thomas, who was ar­rest­ed dur­ing a trip to Bar­ba­dos, was grant­ed $800,000 bail.

Thomas then filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suit in which he chal­lenged the search war­rants ob­tained by in­ves­ti­ga­tors and the cor­re­spond­ing case against him.

High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad grant­ed in­ter­im or­ders in the case as he di­rect­ed the po­lice to re­turn some of the items in­clud­ing ledgers that were seized dur­ing the raids.

In the ap­peal, the AG’s Of­fice chal­lenged Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s de­ci­sion to refuse two ex­ten­sions for it to file ev­i­dence in op­po­si­tion to Thomas’ ap­pli­ca­tion for in­ter­im re­lief.

It al­so com­plained that or­ders should not be di­rect­ed at it as such ac­tion would seek to usurp the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS)’s con­sti­tu­tion­al re­mit.

De­liv­er­ing the pan­el’s de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Kokaram ruled that his col­league’s de­ci­sion on the ex­ten­sions and the over­all ap­pli­ca­tion could not be fault­ed.

“We can­not say the judge was plain­ly wrong,” Jus­tice Kokaram said.

He al­so ruled that Jus­tice Ram­per­sad could have made the or­der di­rect­ed to­wards the TTPS against the AG’s Of­fice as un­der the State Li­a­bil­i­ty and Pro­ceed­ings Act, it (the AG’s Of­fice) serves as the con­duit for lit­i­ga­tion against all or­gans of the State.

“No con­flict can arise,” Jus­tice Kokaram said, as he not­ed that over­turn­ing the or­der on that ba­sis would re­sult in a “trav­es­ty of jus­tice”.

Jus­tice Kokaram not­ed that his col­league had re­served his de­ci­sion on the sub­stan­tive le­gal is­sues raised by Thomas and his com­pa­ny and would de­liv­er it (the de­ci­sion) mo­men­tar­i­ly.

The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Vanes­sa Gopaul, Svet­lana Dass, and Adana Hosang. Thomas and the com­pa­ny were rep­re­sent­ed by Fyard Ho­sein, SC, De­vesh Ma­haraj, Sasha Bridge­mo­hans­ingh, and Cheyenne Lu­go. (DA)