Sev­er­al hun­dred po­lice con­sta­bles have threat­ened to sue the State over the fail­ure of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Pro­mo­tion Ad­vi­so­ry Board to con­sid­er them for pro­mo­tion to the rank of cor­po­ral.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the large group made the le­gal threat in a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (COP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, and the board, late last month.

In the cor­re­spon­dence ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the group’s lawyers, led by Jagdeo Singh, claimed that al­though their clients, who joined the TTPS be­tween 1995 and 2012, suc­cess­ful­ly wrote the pro­mo­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tion for the rank of cor­po­ral and in some cas­es even the ex­am­i­na­tion for the high­er rank of Sergeant, they were not in­ter­viewed by the board.

They not­ed that un­der the Po­lice Ser­vice Act, the board is re­quired to sit as of­ten as it thinks nec­es­sary, but at least once every three months, to con­sid­er pro­mo­tions.

The board is com­posed of a Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), an As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), the Di­rec­tor of Hu­man Re­sources of the TTPS, a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant ap­point­ed by the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, and an in­de­pen­dent man­age­ment con­sul­tant ap­point­ed by the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

The board was chaired by Hare­wood-Christo­pher be­tween Feb­ru­ary, last year, and ear­li­er this year when she was pro­mot­ed to head the TTPS.

They claimed that the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er gave sev­er­al rea­sons for the board’s fail­ure to con­vene to con­sid­er the group’s cas­es.

It claimed that the board was de­layed as there were pend­ing court mat­ters in­volv­ing it and a large back­log of of­fi­cers seek­ing pro­mo­tion.

It al­so claimed that the board had to con­duct pro­mo­tions to high­er ranks be­fore the low­er ranks in or­der to pro­duce ad­di­tion­al space in the low­er ranks for pro­mo­tion.

“The In­tend­ed Claimants shall con­tend that while it is whol­ly with­in the dis­cre­tion of the de­ci­sion-mak­er to de­cide what re­sources it de­votes to a par­tic­u­lar statu­to­ry func­tion, it is ev­i­dent that the ex­pla­na­tions ad­vanced by the COP for the in­ac­tiv­i­ty of Pro­mo­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Board could have been ad­e­quate­ly as­suaged by pro­vid­ing re­sources to the Board to car­ry out its func­tion,” their at­tor­ney Sav­it­ri Sama­roo said.

Stat­ing that the un­rea­son­able de­lay af­fect­ed her clients’ pro­mo­tion­al prospects, Sama­roo said that some may re­tire be­fore the board gets around to con­sid­er­ing them for pro­mo­tion.

She al­so claimed that her clients were de­mo­ti­vat­ed.

“The In­tend­ed De­fen­dants’ fail­ure to take time­ly steps to make de­ci­sions and/or give ef­fect to the statu­to­ry man­date of ef­fect­ing a fair and bal­anced pro­mo­tion­al process, has neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed the morale of the TTPS,” she said.

Stat­ing that the board sat to con­sid­er pro­mo­tions to the rank of Cor­po­ral in 2014 and 2015 and to the rank of Sergeant in 2016, Sama­roo claimed that her clients’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment from any pub­lic au­thor­i­ty was in­fringed.

“It is there­fore ev­i­dent that the Pro­mo­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Board has on oc­ca­sion sat in the past and has treat­ed sim­i­lar­ly cir­cum­stanced of­fi­cers bet­ter than the In­tend­ed Claimants,” she said.

She sug­gest­ed that her clients should be as­sessed by the board based on the date they passed their ex­am­i­na­tion and not be grouped with oth­er of­fi­cers who com­plet­ed the process sub­se­quent to them.

“In do­ing jus­tice to this pro­posed claim, the In­tend­ed Claimants, at this stage, ought to be giv­en ur­gent and pri­or­i­tized con­sid­er­a­tion in ad­vance of any oth­er pro­mo­tion process be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed or ex­haust­ed,” she said.

Through the pro­posed law­suit, the of­fi­cers are seek­ing or­ders com­pelling the board to as­sess them and arrange in­ter­views so that a mer­it list could be com­piled for sub­mis­sion to Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

They are al­so seek­ing dam­ages for the loss of the salaries and pen­sion ben­e­fits they would have re­ceived if the board had con­sid­ered them with­in three months of them com­plet­ing the ex­am­i­na­tion.

Sama­roo gave the par­ties a sev­en-day dead­line to re­spond to the le­gal threat.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the group’s lawyers are ex­pect­ed to file the case lat­er this week as the dead­line passed with­out a sat­is­fac­to­ry re­sponse.

The group is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Leon Kalicha­ran, Ka­ri­na Singh, and Vashisht Seep­er­sad.