Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
A prison officer has won a lawsuit over the procedure used by the Public Service Commission (PSC) to discipline him for allegedly submitting a fake degree certificate when seeking promotion.
In a judgment delivered on Monday, High Court Judge Karen Reid upheld a lawsuit from Neil Looknanan over the failure of the PSC to consider his representations when it charged him and appointed a disciplinary tribunal to determine his guilt or innocence.
Justice Reid quashed the charge and the referral to the tribunal and directed the PSC to reconsider whether Looknanan should be subjected to the disciplinary process based on the representations it previously ignored.
Looknanan was appointed a prison officer in July 1996 and was promoted to Prison Officer II in 2011.
In January 2019, Looknanan applied to be promoted to the rank of prison supervisor.
After he was informed that he attained 70 points and placed 70 on a merit list, Looknanan challenged the assessment as he claimed that he should have earned extra points based on his qualifications in mechanical engineering.
Looknanan claimed that he only referenced a technical diploma in his request, while the PSC subsequently claimed that he also submitted a certificate for a BSc in Mechanical Engineering purportedly from the University of the West Indies (UWI).
The PSC denied his request and maintained the score assigned to him. It also communicated that he did not submit the certificate as it subsequently claimed.
However, several months later the PSC indicated that it had received information that the certificate was fraudulent.
An investigator found that Looknanan should be charged with knowingly submitting a false document and the PSC appointed a tribunal.
Looknanan denied any wrongdoing as he repeatedly claimed that he never submitted the certificate as claimed.
Looknanan’s lawyers Navindra Ramnanan and Ricky Pandohee filed the case as the PSC failed to acknowledge or address two sets of representations made on their client’s behalf during the disciplinary process.
In deciding the case, Justice Reid stated that the PSC breached its regulations by failing to consider the representations.
“Notwithstanding that both these failures were the crux of the Claimant’s case, the Defendant did not condescend to explain how it came to wholly fail to comply with the requirements of regulations 90(6) and 92,” Justice Reid said.
She found that the PSC failure breached the rules of natural justice and was illegal.
Despite the finding, Justice Reid noted that the outcome of the case was strictly procedural and did not determine the underlying allegation.
“It is entirely outside the scope of this court’s function in these judicial review proceedings to determine whether or not the Claimant wilfully submitted a false or fraudulent degree in order to obtain extra points on his assessment,” Justice Reid said.
“That would be the function of the Disciplinary Tribunal tasked with enquiring into the matter and finding the facts,” she added.
Justice Reid also declined to consider whether Looknanan’s constitutional rights were breached, as he did not add the Office of the Attorney General to the case. She also stated that he was not entitled to monetary compensation.
The PSC was represented by Niquelle Granville, Vandana Ramadhar, Laura Persad and Domonique Bernard.
