Derek Achong

A group of 30 po­lice Sergeants have ap­plied to have an in­junc­tion pre­vent­ing all pro­mo­tions to the rank of In­spec­tor, ob­tained by a group of their col­leagues, lift­ed.  Ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments filed and ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the group is seek­ing to be added to their col­leagues’ pend­ing case and to have their in­junc­tion lift­ed or var­ied so that they can be pro­mot­ed while their col­leagues con­tin­ue their le­gal ac­tion. 

The dis­pute arose late last year, as the Pro­mo­tion Ad­vi­so­ry Board held in­ter­views with can­di­dates and pre­pared a mer­it list for pro­mo­tions. 
The group of of­fi­cers, led by Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Sec­re­tary Sgt An­cil Forde, filed an ap­pli­ca­tion for leave to pur­sue a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise as they claimed that there were sev­er­al anom­alies with a new pro­por­tion­al point sys­tem in­tro­duced by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith for the ex­am­i­na­tion seg­ment. 

They were grant­ed an in­junc­tion block­ing all pro­mo­tions by High Court Judge Bet­sey Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son, which was ex­tend­ed by High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed.  
In the court fil­ings, the sec­ond group’s at­tor­neys, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, not­ed that the in­junc­tion, which blocked their clients’ pro­mo­tions, re­mains in place while the first group was still await­ing a de­ci­sion whether they should be grant­ed leave to pur­sue their law­suit.

They claimed that the pend­ing leave ap­pli­ca­tion was with­out mer­it as the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er is per­mit­ted un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion to make the changes to the pro­mo­tion pro­ce­dure com­plained about. 
“Giv­en that more than six months have elapsed since the ap­pli­ca­tion for leave was filed, the prej­u­dice and detri­ment to the ap­pli­cants/pro­posed in­ter­est­ed par­ties who have ac­quired vest­ed rights to pro­mo­tion based on their po­si­tion on the Or­der of Mer­it List has wors­ened con­sid­er­ably,” they said.

They said that their clients were con­cerned that the mer­it list would ex­pire in De­cem­ber with­out them be­ing pro­mot­ed and that they would have to par­tic­i­pate in a lengthy pro­mo­tion pro­ce­dure once again. They ad­mit­ted that Grif­fith is em­pow­ered to ex­tend the list by a year but there is no guar­an­tee that he would ex­er­cise his dis­cre­tion to do so. 
“The in­junc­tion there­fore threat­ens to al­to­geth­er de­prive them of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be pro­mot­ed to the rank of In­spec­tor be­fore they pro­ceed on pre-re­tire­ment and re­tire­ment leave,” they said. 
“This has ob­vi­ous im­pli­ca­tions for the gra­tu­ity, pen­sion and re­tire­ment ben­e­fits for these of­fi­cers and ad­verse con­se­quences and im­pli­ca­tions for their stan­dard of liv­ing post re­tire­ment,” they added. 

They al­so not­ed that since the dis­pute arose last year, their clients have been ap­point­ed to act in the po­si­tion. 
At­tached to the ap­pli­ca­tion was a cer­tifi­cate of ur­gency seek­ing to jus­ti­fy hav­ing it heard ur­gent­ly dur­ing the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and an af­fi­davit of one of their clients, Sgt Aslim Ho­sein, who de­tailed his per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence when he learned of the in­junc­tion on the day he was due to be pro­mot­ed. 

“I was emo­tion­al­ly dis­traught. I did not know how to process the fact that I would not be re­ceiv­ing the pro­mo­tion I worked so dili­gent­ly to­wards for so long,” Ho­sein said.
Ho­sein al­so not­ed that one of his col­leagues, who placed high on the mer­it list, died while await­ing pro­mo­tion. 
“The in­junc­tion in ques­tion has caused grave, far-reach­ing ef­fects on the ca­reer ad­vance­ment of all ap­pli­cants/pro­posed in­ter­est­ed par­ties in this case. It has ef­fec­tive­ly paused and/or placed our ca­reer ad­vance­ment in a state of abeyance and vac­il­la­tion,” Ho­sein said. 

A date for the hear­ing of the ap­pli­ca­tion is yet to be set.
The in­junc­tion was men­tioned by Grif­fith this week in a lengthy open let­ter to all po­lice of­fi­cers on pro­mo­tions. 
Grif­fith was al­leged­ly re­spond­ing to a com­plaint by Forde, over the Pro­mo­tion Ad­vi­so­ry Board not be­ing prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed. 
He claimed that the is­sue with the board was with a mem­ber put for­ward pre­vi­ous­ly by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

Grif­fith claimed that he on­ly re­ceived an ob­jec­tion to the mem­ber from the min­istry in March af­ter the process was com­plete. 
Grif­fith ac­cused Forde of us­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion to pur­sue a per­son­al cru­sade as he claimed that he (Forde) had placed low on the mer­it list and was un­like­ly to be pro­mot­ed in the near fu­ture. 
“It ap­pears to me, there­fore, that his (Forde) mo­ti­va­tion and des­per­a­tion to now file an ac­tion and spread dis­cord about the said pro­mo­tion process he so ea­ger­ly ac­cept­ed when he was last pro­mot­ed to sergeant, is sim­ply about en­sur­ing that if he doesn’t have his way no one else will,” Grif­fith said. 
“What else can pre­cise­ly be his mo­tive? It cer­tain­ly isn’t in the in­ter­ests of the mem­bers since most of the mem­bers in line for these pro­mo­tions now sit above him in or­der of mer­it,” Grif­fith added. 

The sec­ond group of of­fi­cers seek­ing the lift on the in­junc­tion are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Alana Ram­baran, Ganesh Sa­roop and Natasha Bis­ram.