High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad will Thurs­day give his judge­ment in a law­suit brought by mem­bers of a fam­i­ly from Bar­rack­pore, who are claim­ing that their rel­a­tives’ graves were de­stroyed dur­ing the con­struc­tion of a re­tain­ing wall at the Mon­key Town Pub­lic Ceme­tery, ear­li­er this year.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­served his de­ci­sion in the case brought by wid­ow Sav­it­ri Sookram and her broth­er-in-law Bachan Ramd­han against the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion af­ter com­plet­ing a vir­tu­al tri­al yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Tes­ti­fy­ing yes­ter­day, Sookram and her son-in-law Videsha Siew Sankar claimed that in Jan­u­ary they learned that the fam­i­ly’s plot had been dis­turbed while a con­trac­tor hired by the cor­po­ra­tion was do­ing re­me­di­al works on a road in the ceme­tery that was dam­aged by a land­slip. 

They claimed that af­ter stop­ping the ex­ca­va­tion works, Sankar’s 12-year-old son found what ap­peared to be bone frag­ments and the rem­nants of a cas­ket in the ex­ca­vat­ed area.

The tomb­stones of Sookram’s hus­band Ed­win, who was buried in the plot in 2018, and oth­er rel­a­tives were miss­ing. 

While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined by the cor­po­ra­tion’s lawyer Narad Har­rikissoon, Sookram and Sankar ad­mit­ted that the bones should have been sent for DNA test­ing to prove that the bones be­longed to their rel­a­tives. 

How­ev­er, Sankar claimed that the cor­po­ra­tion should have fa­cil­i­tat­ed such test­ing as it had dis­turbed the graves. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad in­ter­rupt­ed the ques­tion­ing to ask whether the cor­po­ra­tion had changed its de­fence that the con­struc­tion work did not dam­age any graves in the ceme­tery and that the al­leged dam­age was caused by the land­slip. Har­rikissoon said no. 

Sookram did main­tain the items that were re­cov­ered by her grand­son -and when the fam­i­ly were grant­ed per­mis­sion to ex­hume the re­mains and rein­tern them - were from her hus­band’s bur­ial as she recog­nised the han­dle of his cas­ket. 

“It had to be be­cause they dug up all the graves,” she said. 

Sookram al­so ad­mit­ted that while she claimed that she had to vis­it a doc­tor and re­ceived med­ica­tion due to the men­tal dis­tress caused by the in­ci­dent, she did not at­tach med­ical records or re­ceipts to the law­suit. 

Al­so tes­ti­fy­ing yes­ter­day was gravedig­ger Siew­di­al Ram­nar­ine, who dug the grave for Sookram’s hus­band and was hired to help ex­hume the re­mains. 

Ram­nar­ine claimed that he on­ly found bone frag­ments af­ter dig­ging be­tween six and eight feet at the site. 

“There was no cof­fin to be found,” Ram­nar­ine said. 

In his ev­i­dence, Ramd­han, whose wife was buried in the plot in 2007, tes­ti­fied that he was aware that the cor­po­ra­tion planned to do work near the plot due to a land­slip but claimed that he be­lieved that it would not have in­ter­fered with the fam­i­ly’s plot.

In his ev­i­dence, ceme­tery keep­er Adri­an Gopaul, who tes­ti­fied on be­half of the cor­po­ra­tion, ad­mit­ted that graves were dis­turbed in the ex­ca­va­tion and that the con­trac­tor did not con­sult with him. 

Quizzed over his claims that Ram­nar­ine did not dig as deep as claimed when ex­hum­ing the bod­ies, Gopaul claimed that they would not have to dig as deep as claimed as the ex­ca­va­tion work would have re­moved some lay­ers off the graves. 

Asked whether he had a plan or map of the graves and plots in the ceme­tery, Gopaul said no and claimed that he re­lied on his record-keep­ing, which was passed down by his de­ceased step­moth­er, who per­formed the job be­fore her death. 

The cor­po­ra­tion was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by An­dre Sinanan, while Satesh Em­rit and In­di­ra Bin­da rep­re­sent­ed the fam­i­ly.