Derek Achong

A group of con­trac­tors have lost their bid to have a con­tro­ver­sial law­suit over con­tracts award­ed in the run-up to the 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion dis­missed at a pre­lim­i­nary stage.

De­liv­er­ing an over 100-page pre­lim­i­nary judge­ment dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, High Court Judge James Aboud dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion in which the con­trac­tors were call­ing for the strik­ing out of the case if the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (EM­BD) did not pro­vide ad­di­tion­al par­tic­u­lars on its al­le­ga­tions against them.

How­ev­er, Aboud ruled that the EM­BD had pre­sent­ed suf­fi­cient pre­lim­i­nary facts which should be de­ter­mined by the court at an even­tu­al tri­al.

“Some­one has to ex­plain at the ap­pro­pri­ate time, in a way that is sen­si­ble, how it is that these un­usu­al pat­terns, odd­i­ties and in­con­sis­ten­cies can ex­ist oth­er than by col­lu­sion by con­trac­tors,” Aboud said as he de­liv­ered his ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry for al­most two hours over his sched­uled time.

Aboud was al­so care­ful to note that the par­ties sued and coun­ter­sued by the EM­BD are yet to file their de­fences in the sub­stan­tive case and would be able to prove their cas­es that the al­leged ac­tion com­plained about is un­war­rant­ed at the tri­al stage.

He said the EM­BD could not be ex­pect­ed to ex­pend funds to hire ex­perts to analyse the ev­i­dence to the de­gree sought by the con­trac­tors un­til the ap­pli­ca­tion was de­ter­mined, as it could be po­ten­tial­ly a waste of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey.

Based on his de­ci­sion, Aboud will have to now de­ter­mine a se­ries of oth­er ap­pli­ca­tions seek­ing to ex­tend the time for the par­ties to file their de­fences be­fore the case goes to tri­al.

The process may be de­layed if the con­trac­tors de­cide, with­in the next sev­en days, to ap­peal Aboud’s de­ci­sion.

The law­suit cen­ters around 12 con­tracts for the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of roads and in­fra­struc­ture which were grant­ed to five con­trac­tors be­fore the Sep­tem­ber 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. 

Con­trac­tors TN Ram­nauth, Mooti­lal Ramhit and Sons Con­tract­ing Ltd (Ramhit) and Kall Com­pa­ny Ltd (Kall­co) ini­ti­at­ed the pro­ceed­ings against the State-owned spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny for the al­most $200 mil­lion bal­ance owed on their re­spec­tive con­tracts.

The EM­BD coun­ter­sued the con­trac­tors, claim­ing that they, as well as con­trac­tors Fides and Na­mal­co, con­spired to­geth­er with for­mer Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, for­mer EM­BD CEO Gary Par­mas­sar, for­mer di­vi­sion­al man­ag­er Mad­hoo Bal­roop and en­gi­neer An­drew Walk­er to cor­rupt­ly ob­tain the con­tracts.

It al­so claimed that the par­ties agreed to fa­cil­i­tate the con­trac­tors re­ceiv­ing pre­lim­i­nary pay­ments for the work, which was al­leged­ly over­priced and sub­stan­dard and utilised a loan, meant to pay for oth­er le­git­i­mate con­tracts, to make in­ter­im pay­ments to the con­trac­tors.

Through the law­suit, the EM­BD is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against the par­ties, in­clud­ing one on the il­le­gal­i­ty of the con­tracts.

In his judge­ment, Aboud said based on his analy­sis of the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed thus far and with­out the as­sis­tance of the de­fen­dants’ cas­es and ex­perts, the EM­BD had the strongest plead­ings against Par­mas­sar.

“Par­mas­sar would have a lot to an­swer for at tri­al,” Aboud said.

Last week, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing con­trac­tors TN Ram­nauth, Mooti­lal Ramhit and Sons Con­tract­ing Ltd (Ramhit) and Kall Com­pa­ny Ltd (Kall­co) wrote to Aboud seek­ing a de­fer­ral of his de­ci­sion un­til af­ter next week’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion, cit­ing ad­verse com­men­tary from the coun­ty’s main po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Aboud, how­ev­er, de­clined based on the fact that he had set the date for the long-out­stand­ing de­ci­sion be­fore the elec­tion was pro­claimed and be­cause of his tight court sched­ule.

Con­trac­tors TN Ram­nauth, Mooti­lal Ramhit and Sons Con­tract­ing Ltd (Ramhit) and Kall Com­pa­ny Ltd (Kall­co) are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, Jagdeo Singh, Kiel Tak­lals­ingh and Ka­ri­na Singh. Na­mal­co was rep­re­sent­ed by Roger Kawal­sigh.

Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Alvin Pariags­ingh and Ganesh Sa­roop rep­re­sent­ed Mooni­lal, who did not join in ei­ther the ap­pli­ca­tion to strike out the case or the pro­pos­al to post­pone the de­ci­sion. Fides was rep­re­sent­ed by Lynette Ma­haraj, SC.

The EM­BD is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by David Phillips, QC, Ja­son Mootoo and Sav­it­ri Sookraj-Be­har­ry.