Derek Achong

For­mer Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and cur­rent Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­COTT) chair­man Noel Gar­cia has won his law­suit over the find­ings of the Las Al­turas Com­mis­sion of En­quiry.

De­liv­er­ing a short de­ci­sion via email late yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran ruled that the com­mis­sion act­ed il­le­gal­ly, un­rea­son­ably and ir­ra­tional­ly by de­cid­ing and rec­om­mend­ing find­ings against Gar­cia in its fi­nal re­port on Au­gust 30, 2016.

Con­se­quent­ly, Ram­cha­ran de­clared that the find­ings were null, void and of no ef­fect.

The de­ci­sion in Gar­cia’s case comes ex­act­ly a week af­ter for­mer UDe­COTT ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Calder Hart’s sim­i­lar case against the com­mis­sion was dis­missed by High Court Judge David Har­ris.

How­ev­er, Hart’s case was dif­fer­ent as he was chal­leng­ing his lack of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­ceed­ings and claimed the com­mis­sion made ir­rel­e­vant con­sid­er­a­tions.

Har­ris ruled that Hart could not com­plain as he had been giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate but freely de­clined.

Gar­cia tes­ti­fied but claimed that the com­mis­sion failed in its du­ty to warn him of po­ten­tial find­ings when it is­sued a salmon let­ter for his par­tic­i­pa­tion.

In Com­mis­sions of En­quiry, salmon let­ters as are sent out to peo­ple who will be sub­ject to crit­i­cism once the fi­nal re­port is pub­lished and are in­tend­ed to give peo­ple time to pre­pare for the ex­po­sure and po­ten­tial ad­di­tion­al le­gal re­course.

“It came as a sur­prise,” Gar­cia’s lawyer Col­in Kan­ga­loo said while pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions in the tri­al ear­li­er this year.

The com­mis­sion of en­quiry was set up to in­ves­ti­gate the con­struc­tion of the Las Al­turas Tow­ers at La­dy Young Gar­dens, Mor­vant.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­point­ed the com­mis­sion af­ter two mul­ti-sto­ry units of the hous­ing project be­gan falling apart af­ter con­struc­tion and were ear­marked for de­mo­li­tion.

In the com­mis­sion’s re­port, it stat­ed that while there were no grounds for crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings to be brought against any­one, civ­il ac­tion could be tak­en against Hart, Gar­cia, UDe­COTT and the HDC for neg­li­gence in how the project was han­dled.

Re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Mustapha Ibrahim, who chaired the com­mis­sion, was list­ed as a par­ty but passed away while the case was still pend­ing. The case was con­tin­ued against the re­main­ing com­mis­sion­ers - Dr My­ron Wing-Sang Chin and An­tho­ny Far­rell.

As part of the judg­ment, Ram­cha­ran or­dered the com­mis­sion to pay Gar­cia’s le­gal costs.

The com­mis­sion was rep­re­sent­ed by Richard Clay­ton, QC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Vishal Siewsaran, and Alvin Pariags­ingh.

Fyard Ho­sein, SC and Rishi Dass rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.