A High Court judge has or­dered the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion to re­in­state an em­ploy­ee eight years af­ter he was fired. 

In her rul­ing, Jus­tice Joan Charles found that the Spe­cial Tri­bunal of the In­dus­tri­al Court act­ed un­law­ful­ly in dis­miss­ing the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion and Farad Mo­hammed’s dis­pute, there­by con­firm­ing Mo­hammed’s dis­missal.

Through at­tor­neys Michael Rooplal and Kevin Rati­ram, the EPA and Mo­hammed sought ju­di­cial re­view chal­leng­ing the de­ci­sion of the Spe­cial Tri­bunal and T&TEC.

Mo­hammed be­gan work­ing as a tem­po­rary Es­tate Con­sta­ble on De­cem­ber 10, 2012, and was made per­ma­nent on De­cem­ber 18, 2014. 

He was ac­cused of tam­per­ing with T&TEC’s prop­er­ty by re­mov­ing a Toy­ota em­blem val­ued at $466.20 from the trunk of a ve­hi­cle with­out the com­mis­sion’s con­sent and knowl­edge. 

He was al­so ac­cused of steal­ing the em­blem, but that charge was dropped at the dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing in De­cem­ber 2016. 

Af­ter six hear­ings presided over by a one-man tri­bunal, Mo­hammed re­ceived a let­ter in­form­ing him of his dis­missal ef­fec­tive Feb­ru­ary 16, 2017. The EPA and Mo­hammed sought re­dress be­fore the Spe­cial Tri­bunal but their dis­pute was dis­missed in Oc­to­ber 2019.

On the ju­di­cial re­view claim, Mo­hammed at­tor­neys ar­gued that he had an un­blem­ished record and the de­ci­sion was ul­tra vires T&TEC’s code which pro­vides that the penal­ty for the first of­fence is a max­i­mum of 30 days sus­pen­sion with a threat of dis­missal and the penal­ty for the sec­ond of­fence be­ing dis­missal.

They al­so claimed that the de­ci­sion amount­ed to a breach of the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice and pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness since the as­so­ci­a­tion was not al­lowed to make a plea in mit­i­ga­tion on Mo­hammed’s be­half and failed to con­sid­er any mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors, in­clud­ing his per­son­al cir­cum­stances and the min­i­mal val­ue of the item. 

They al­so con­tend­ed that his dis­missal was un­rea­son­able giv­en Mo­hammed’s un­blem­ished record and that he was found guilty of tam­per­ing not theft.

The de­fen­dants ar­gued that the code al­lows for dis­cre­tion and it was rea­son­ably ex­er­cised in Mo­hammed’s case.

In her rul­ing, the judge said the fail­ure of the tri­bunal to al­low the EPA to ad­vance a plea in mit­i­ga­tion in this case was un­fair and a breach of the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice. 

The judge said, “Their omis­sion is all the more glar­ing when one takes in­to ac­count the fact that the Spe­cial Tri­bunal mis­di­rect­ed it­self by im­pos­ing a penal­ty not pro­vid­ed for in the code for the of­fence of tam­per­ing.

“By fail­ing to al­low the First Claimant (EPA) to ad­vance be­fore its facts in mit­i­ga­tion, the Spe­cial Tri­bunal de­prived it­self of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fair­ly dis­pose of the case by ap­ply­ing a sen­tence for the claimant’s breach that was in­tra vires the code and ap­pro­pri­ate for the of­fence of tam­per­ing com­mit­ted by a first-time of­fend­er.”

Jus­tice Charles said this was detri­men­tal to  Mo­hammed since it re­sult­ed in the ter­mi­na­tion of his em­ploy­ment and loss of in­come.

Quash­ing the de­ci­sion of the tri­bunal, Jus­tice Charles grant­ed a de­c­la­ra­tion that the tri­bunal’s dis­missal of their dis­pute was un­law­ful and re­mit­ted the mat­ter to the tri­bunal, to re­ceive a plea in mit­i­ga­tion on Mo­hammed’s be­half and the ap­pli­ca­tion of the pro­vi­sion of the code rel­a­tive to that of­fence for a first-time of­fend­er.