Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has been or­dered to re­in­state a long serv­ing teacher, who turned down a pro­mo­tion to be the prin­ci­pal of a pri­ma­ry school due to her daugh­ter’s med­ical con­di­tion be­fore hav­ing a change of heart days lat­er.

High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well gave the or­der last week af­ter the min­istry and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) con­ced­ed the ju­di­cial re­view law­suit brought by In­dra Ram­datt-Jagdeo.

Ac­cord­ing to her court fil­ings, in April, Ram­datt-Jagdeo took up a pro­mo­tion to be the prin­ci­pal of the Hap­py Hill SDMS Pri­ma­ry School in Gas­par­il­lo.

Ram­datt-Jagdeo, who is a wid­ow and has been a sin­gle par­ent to her two chil­dren for the past 15 years, claimed that around the time she took up the ap­point­ment, the health of her daugh­ter, who has a spinal birth de­fect, be­gan to wors­en.

She claimed that she was dis­tressed and had doubts over her abil­i­ty to take on the pro­mo­tion based on her daugh­ter’s de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion and the fact that she (her daugh­ter) was due to un­der­go a risky pro­ce­dure that could have re­sult­ed in her be­ing paral­ysed from the neck down.

In late April, Ram­datt-Jagdeo ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion based on al­leged ad­vice from an un­named of­fi­cial of the TSC, as she claimed that she was un­der the im­pres­sion that she could re­sume her du­ties as a teacher af­ter.

Her res­ig­na­tion let­ter was on­ly re­ceived sev­er­al days lat­er, when it was stamped by a school su­per­vi­sor.

Two days lat­er, how­ev­er, Ram­datt-Jagdeo had a change of heart and wrote to the min­istry seek­ing to re­scind her pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence.

While min­istry of­fi­cials al­leged­ly in­di­cat­ed that the with­draw­al of her res­ig­na­tion could be fa­cil­i­tat­ed based on the short time line, she was lat­er in­formed that this was not pos­si­ble due to re­sis­tance from the school’s de­nom­i­na­tion­al board.

Ram­datt-Jagdeo claimed that she met with board of­fi­cials, who in­di­cat­ed that they pre­ferred that she did not re­turn to the post based on her in­de­ci­sive­ness.

She claimed that she was forced to file the law­suit af­ter she at­tempt­ed to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion with the min­istry to no avail.

In her court fil­ings, Ram­datt-Jagdeo’s lawyers from the Free­dom Law Cham­bers claimed that she was re­gret­ful for the in­con­ve­nience caused by the ini­tial let­ter.

“With­in two days she sub­mit­ted the let­ter of re­trac­tion, yet she has been left in a state of abeyance and lim­bo when she has not been ap­point­ed to serve in an of­fice in the teach­ing ser­vice. This has caused her se­vere hard­ship, much stress and grave in­con­ve­nience,” they said.

Through the law­suit, Ram­datt-Jagdeo was seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that she was treat­ed un­fair­ly and con­trary to the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well or­dered that Ram­datt-Jagdeo be al­lowed to take up du­ties at the school on Jan­u­ary 2 next year. She al­so or­dered that the min­istry con­tin­ue to pay Ram­datt-Jagdeo her salary and ben­e­fits as a school prin­ci­pal.

The TSC and the min­istry were al­so or­dered to pay her le­gal costs for pur­su­ing the case.

Ram­datt-Jagdeo was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Natasha Bis­ram, Vishaal Siewsaran and Jared Ja­groo.