Derek Achong

A Ch­agua­nas farmer has suc­ceed­ed in her law­suit over an al­most two-decade-long de­lay in re­new­ing her lease for a par­cel of land for­mer­ly held by now-de­funct State sug­ar com­pa­ny Ca­roni (1975) Ltd.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment late last week, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran par­tial­ly up­held Bis­sundai Ram­per­sad’s ju­di­cial re­view law­suit against the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran ruled that Ram­per­sad was the law­ful ten­ant of the land and or­dered State Lands Com­mis­sion­er Bhan­mati Seecha­ran to ur­gent­ly process her ap­pli­ca­tion for re­new­al.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Ram­per­sad en­tered in­to a five-year lease arrange­ment with the com­pa­ny for 1.25 acres of agri­cul­tur­al land in Fe­lic­i­ty, Ch­agua­nas, in March 1999. Be­fore the lease was due to ex­pire, Ram­per­sad sought to re­new the agree­ment, which fell un­der the Agri­cul­tur­al Small Hold­ings Tenure Or­di­nance.

Ram­per­sad faced nu­mer­ous de­lays be­fore her at­tor­ney Richard Jag­gasar made a re­quest un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) for an up­date on her ap­pli­ca­tion in 2020.

Jag­gasar even­tu­al­ly filed the law­suit against the com­mis­sion­er and the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) of the com­pa­ny in 2021 as he claimed the or­di­nance re­quired the re­new­al to take place with­in three months.

“Sim­ply put, if the State ex­pects to re­new a tenure agree­ment in three months then it should al­so be able to process an ap­pli­ca­tion for a tenure agree­ment in three months as well,” Jag­gasar said.

In de­fence of the case, the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice claimed it nev­er re­ceived Ram­per­sad’s re­new­al ap­pli­ca­tion, which was sent to the com­pa­ny be­fore it (the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice) was as­signed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for man­ag­ing the leas­es.

The com­pa­ny’s CEO claimed Ram­per­sad might be in breach of the agree­ment and was not en­ti­tled to re­new­al.

Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran re­ject­ed the de­fence by the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice that Ram­per­sad should have sub­mit­ted a new ap­pli­ca­tion as the one pro­vid­ed to the com­pa­ny could not be lo­cat­ed.

“The court notes, how­ev­er, that had this po­si­tion been ex­pressed dur­ing the pre-ac­tion process, it may well have been that the claimant would have de­cid­ed to take a prac­ti­cal ap­proach and sub­mit a new ap­pli­ca­tion to ex­pe­dite the process,” he said.

“The court is of the view that this is lit­i­ga­tion which could eas­i­ly have been avoid­ed if there had been prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the par­ties dur­ing the pre-ac­tion process.”

De­spite his find­ings, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran or­dered that Ram­per­sad re­sub­mit an ap­pli­ca­tion as it was the most prac­ti­cal course of ac­tion. He al­so in­struct­ed the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice to seek the ex­pe­di­tious ap­proval of the ap­pli­ca­tion as he not­ed that sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tions made in 2017 by oth­er lease­hold­ers were yet to re­ceive Cab­i­net ap­proval.

Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran al­so ruled that the com­pa­ny’s CEO was not a prop­er par­ty to the claim as it (the com­pa­ny) should have been used in­stead.

How­ev­er, he re­ject­ed the CEO’s claims over the re­new­al as he point­ed out that the pro­ce­dure was no longer un­der the com­pa­ny’s re­mit and the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice recog­nised Ram­per­sad as the prop­er ten­ant for the prop­er­ty.

In a press re­lease is­sued fol­low­ing the out­come, Jag­gasar claimed that the case would serve as a prece­dent for many oth­er lease­hold­ers fac­ing sim­i­lar de­lays.

“When Ca­roni (1975) Ltd closed its doors, each of its em­ploy­ees at the time was promised land tenures...Any at­tempts to re­new land tenures were met with an un­de­fined process of re­new­al, re­sult­ing in fre­quent de­lays and con­fu­sion,” Jag­gasar said.

As part of his de­ci­sion in the case, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran or­dered the com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice to pay Ram­per­sad’s le­gal costs for the law­suit.

Ram­per­sad was or­dered to pay the le­gal costs in­curred by the com­pa­ny’s CEO.