Derek Achong

The State has been or­dered to pay over $750,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to four em­ploy­ees of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Lands, and Fish­eries, who were by­passed for pro­mo­tion. 

High Court Judge Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Vi­jay Singh, Rishi Singh, Sunil Ram­nar­ine, and Mar­sha Sookoo in a judg­ment de­liv­ered at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day. 

In their law­suits, the four co-work­ers con­tend­ed that their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment from a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty was breached as the min­istry had pro­mot­ed their co-work­ers with the same de­gree in Re­source, Recre­ation, and Tourism from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ida­ho. 

Vi­jay Singh's law­suit was cho­sen to be the test case, that would de­ter­mine the out­come of the oth­ers, but it was ini­tial­ly dis­missed by Boodoos­ingh. 

He ap­pealed and his claim was even­tu­al­ly up­held by the Court of Ap­peal in June 2018. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­lan Men­don­ca, Pe­ter Ja­madar and Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar looked at the pro­mo­tion of three of Singh's col­leagues and ques­tioned why he was treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly. While they ruled that se­nior­i­ty may have been a fac­tor, they said that should not have made him in­el­i­gi­ble for pro­mo­tion. "No ac­cept­able ex­pla­na­tion has been giv­en for the fail­ure to treat him sim­i­lar­ly," Ja­madar said. As part of the rul­ing, the judges or­dered that Singh and by ex­ten­sion his col­leagues re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion for his loss of op­por­tu­ni­ty at be­ing pro­mot­ed and for the in­con­ve­nience he suf­fered. In the sec­ond limb of his law­suit, Singh was chal­leng­ing the min­istry's de­lay in de­ter­min­ing whether his de­gree was recog­nised as equiv­a­lent to a de­gree in forestry, which was re­quired for the post. While min­istry stat­ed it was not, in a let­ter to Singh in 2014, it al­so en­deav­oured to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the is­sue from the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. The min­istry was un­able to give an an­swer even as the ap­peal was heard by the pan­el. The judges ruled that the min­istry's de­lay was both un­fair and un­rea­son­able. They not­ed that in 2006, Singh ap­plied to study at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Guyana but was told by the then Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion that his schol­ar­ship did not cov­er stud­ies at that ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion. His de­ci­sion to study in the Unit­ed States was based on the min­istry's ad­vice and be­cause that in­sti­tu­tion was recog­nised by the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of T&T. 

In as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion, Boodoos­ingh award­ed the four co-work­ers a to­tal of $350,000 for their loss of op­por­tu­ni­ty. The fig­ure each re­ceived was based on when they should have been pro­mot­ed and the salaries they would have re­ceived.  

Boodoos­ingh al­so or­dered that the State pay each em­ploy­ee $100,000 to vin­di­cate their rights to equal­i­ty of treat­ment. 

The em­ploy­ees were rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Alvin Pariags­ingh, and Alana Ram­baran.

The min­istry was rep­re­sent­ed by Coreen Find­ley and Jen­na Ga­jad­har. Kar­lene Seenath, Daniel­la Box­hill, and Am­ri­ta Ram­sook rep­re­sent­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.