Derek Achong

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert is set to be forced to de­fend an­oth­er law­suit over the re­cruit­ment process for the Chair­man of the Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR).

On Wednes­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of In­land Rev­enue Sa­be­ta Lall sent the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter threat­en­ing to file a law­suit over her be­ing by­passed for pro­mo­tion.

The le­gal threat came weeks af­ter Lall’s for­mer col­league Ro­honie Ramkissoon, who al­so held the po­si­tion of as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er be­fore her re­tire­ment, won her law­suit over be­ing treat­ed un­fair­ly by Im­bert in her bid to be ap­point­ed chair­man of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Ramkissoon’s law­suit is cur­rent­ly be­ing ap­pealed.

In the let­ter, Lall’s lawyer Kiel Tak­lals­ingh not­ed that the is­sue be­gan short­ly af­ter for­mer BIR chair­man Ravi Tak­lals­ingh pro­ceed­ed on pre-re­tire­ment leave in Jan­u­ary 2021.

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s then-per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Vish­nu Dhan­paul wrote a mem­o­ran­dum to the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion seek­ing ap­proval for a then-act­ing as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er Sharon Boodoos­ingh, who had less ex­pe­ri­ence than Lall and her col­leagues, to be ap­point­ed to the post.

The memo was then re­scind­ed and Lall and her col­leagues were in­vit­ed to be in­ter­viewed by Im­bert for the po­si­tion.

Tak­lals­ingh claimed that dur­ing the in­ter­view she was quizzed over the al­leged mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds in the cashier’s unit, which fell un­der Lall’s purview.

While Lall de­nied any knowl­edge of the is­sue as it was not pre­vi­ous­ly brought to her at­ten­tion, she claimed that it may have been due to re­ports from oth­er of­fi­cers, which were de­layed be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Tak­lals­ingh claimed that the en­quiry dur­ing the in­ter­view was un­fair to his client.

“In­deed, it would be ab­surd to sug­gest that our client was in any way re­spon­si­ble for an in­ci­dent which took place sev­er­al lay­ers be­low her di­rect su­per­vi­sion, which has now been de­tect­ed be­cause of the usu­al au­dit process with­in the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD),” he said.

He not­ed that af­ter the in­ter­view, Lall was in­formed that her col­league, Wendy Pat­ter­son, was rec­om­mend­ed by Im­bert to Cab­i­net and she (Lall) could not be based on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the unit.

How­ev­er, Tak­lals­ingh point­ed out that no in­ves­ti­ga­tion was sub­se­quent­ly con­duct­ed.

He claimed that af­ter Pat­ter­son’s six-month term end­ed there were sub­se­quent ap­point­ments, in­clud­ing Boodoos­ingh in Jan­u­ary this year.

“No­tably, this de­ci­sion was made with­out any process in­volv­ing our client and with­out any pri­or no­ti­fi­ca­tion,” Tak­lals­ingh said.

Tak­lals­ingh said in her in­tend­ed law­suit, Lall will al­lege that her con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pro­tec­tion of the law was in­fringed.

“The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance’s de­ci­sion to by­pass, and to con­tin­ue to by­pass our client for the post of Chair­man of the BIR (CBIR) is fun­da­men­tal­ly un­fair, ir­ra­tional and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al,” he said.

“If the MoF is to dis­qual­i­fy per­sons from the po­si­tion of CBIR, he must have solid­ly ra­tio­nal and co­gent rea­sons for do­ing so and the process which he adopts to deal with any in­for­ma­tion that he re­ceives, must abide by law­ful stan­dards of fair­ness,” he added.

Tak­lals­ingh gave the AG’s Of­fice 28 days in which to re­spond be­fore he files the law­suit.

In Ramkissoon’s case, she claimed that she was un­fair­ly dis­qual­i­fied from con­sid­er­a­tion based on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing con­duct­ed by the di­vi­sion’s Crim­i­nal Tax In­ves­ti­ga­tion Unit (CTIU) in­to Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) re­funds to two tax­pay­ers.

In up­hold­ing the case, Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed ruled that Im­bert did not act fair­ly, as he on­ly asked Ramkissoon if she was aware of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“She was not told that she was a per­son of in­ter­est or in­formed of the spe­cif­ic al­le­ga­tions against her which caused the De­fen­dant to be con­cerned,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

“She was not al­lowed to ad­dress the De­fen­dant’s con­cerns for deny­ing her the po­si­tion and there­fore not treat­ed fair­ly and de­nied nat­ur­al jus­tice,” she added.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed al­so ruled that Im­bert act­ed ir­ra­tional­ly in his han­dling of the in­ter­view.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed re­ject­ed claims from Im­bert’s le­gal team that Ramkissoon’s case was aca­d­e­m­ic, as she could not be re­con­sid­ered for the po­si­tion as she re­tired with the case still on­go­ing.

Stat­ing that the min­istry used the wrong ap­point­ment pro­ce­dure ini­tial­ly, Jus­tice Mo­hammed sug­gest­ed that the judge­ment would as­sist Im­bert when he has to make sim­i­lar ap­point­ment rec­om­men­da­tions in the fu­ture and would serve as a de­ter­rent to avoid an­oth­er mis­step.

Lall is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Ste­fan Ramkissoon, Kristy Mo­han and Rhea Khan.