Derek Achong

For­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran has been giv­en the green light to pur­sue his law­suit chal­leng­ing Cab­i­net's de­ci­sion to refuse to re­veal its rea­sons for dis­miss­ing him last De­cem­ber.

De­liv­er­ing an oral de­ci­sion in the Port-of-Spain High Court yes­ter­day, High Court judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo ruled that Ram­bar­ran's at­tor­ney had "a re­al prospect of suc­cess" in his case over Cab­i­net's re­fusal to ac­cede to his re­quests un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act for in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the re­vo­ca­tion of his ap­point­ment.

Ram­bar­ran was ap­point­ed to the post on Ju­ly 17, 2012 and was told of his dis­missal in a let­ter from Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who was act­ing Pres­i­dent on De­cem­ber 23, 2015. Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo is the Sen­ate pres­i­dent's sis­ter-in-law.

Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo dis­closed this fact at the start of the case but at­tor­neys for the State and Ram­bar­ran did not op­pose her con­tin­u­ing to pre­side over the case.

While Ram­bar­ran re­ceived no rea­sons for the de­ci­sion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert told the Sen­ate in March that it was due to mis­con­duct and fail­ure to per­form his du­ties.

Speak­ing dur­ing a de­bate of a pri­vate mo­tion chal­leng­ing the de­ci­sion, brought by the Op­po­si­tion, Im­bert said that Ram­bar­ran had breached the Cen­tral Bank Act by dis­clos­ing the largest users of for­eign ex­change, al­most two weeks pri­or to his dis­missal.

In his law­suit, Ram­bar­ran is con­tend­ing that he had writ­ten to Cab­i­net ask­ing for the grounds and ev­i­dence used by it in com­ing to the de­ci­sion but his re­quests were re­fused with­out giv­ing a valid ex­pla­na­tion as to how the in­for­ma­tion re­quest­ed fell with­in those ex­empt­ed un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

He said that the in­for­ma­tion was nec­es­sary for him to con­sid­er his fu­ture le­gal op­tions.

"There is no is­sue of any dam­age which can re­sult from dis­clo­sure of the rea­sons for the re­vo­ca­tion of the ap­point­ment of the Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank.

"In­deed, the pub­lic will ben­e­fit from such a dis­clo­sure as trans­paren­cy and fair­ness re­quire it," Ram­bar­ran's lawyers said.

Ram­bar­ran is seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that Cab­i­net act­ed un­rea­son­ably and ir­ra­tional­ly and an or­der re­vers­ing the de­ci­sion.

Ram­bar­ran has been giv­en un­til Sep­tem­ber 29 to file his ju­di­cial re­view claim. The case has been ad­journed to No­vem­ber 21.

Ram­bar­ran's le­gal team in­cludes Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Ger­ald Ramdeen, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al and Alvin Pariags­ingh, while San­jeev Lal­la, Tama­ra Toolsie and Brent James ap­peared for the State.