Derek Achong

Act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar has emerged vic­to­ri­ous in his law­suit against the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), over its move to have a com­pe­ten­cy-based in­ter­view for pro­mo­tion to the rank of Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion via email on Wednes­day, High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran up­held Ra­moutar’s law­suit, which was filed be­fore he was giv­en his act­ing ap­point­ment af­ter the re­tire­ment of for­mer pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan ear­li­er this year.

In his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ra­moutar is claim­ing that the com­mis­sion moved to in­tro­duce the re­quire­ment af­ter he topped the list of can­di­dates for pro­mo­tions based on cri­te­ria set in 2014 and was await­ing retroac­tive pro­mo­tion.

When Ra­moutar first learned of the change in Oc­to­ber 2020, he wrote to the com­mis­sion seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion but on­ly re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion of re­ceipt of his cor­re­spon­dence.

Ra­moutar and his at­tor­neys then wrote sev­er­al let­ters on the is­sue and re­quest­ed fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on what was be­ing as­sessed in the pro­posed in­ter­view and the ba­sis for it.

The cor­re­spon­dence was al­leged­ly ig­nored and Ra­moutar on­ly re­ceived a re­sponse with the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion on Au­gust 10 last year.

“It is an un­for­tu­nate but telling fea­ture of this case that de­spite nu­mer­ous cor­re­spon­dence be­ing sent on be­half of a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant who has ded­i­cat­ed his life to the Prison Ser­vice that the In­tend­ed De­fen­dant seemed to cal­lous­ly and/or with reck­less dis­re­gard re­fused to pro­vide the In­tend­ed Claimant with ei­ther a re­sponse to his let­ters and/or the in­for­ma­tion and par­tic­u­lars which he sought,” Ra­moutar’s at­tor­neys claimed.

Ra­moutar’s lawyers claimed that the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed showed that their client and his col­leagues were be­ing as­sessed on far more ar­eas of com­pe­ten­cy than used dur­ing the pre­vi­ous pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise, which he (Ra­moutar) topped.

The new ar­eas be­ing as­sessed are fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, pro­cure­ment, pub­lic sec­tor ac­count­ing prac­tices, project man­age­ment and in­ti­mate knowl­edge of sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion.

“The job de­scrip­tion and/or spec­i­fi­ca­tions for the po­si­tion of Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent does not ex­press­ly re­quire the afore­men­tioned com­pe­ten­cies and/or in any event the in­tend­ed claimant was nev­er in­formed that he need­ed to ac­quire such com­pe­ten­cies to be el­i­gi­ble for the said po­si­tion,” the lawyers said.

Ra­moutar’s lawyers al­so claimed that he would be ham­pered by the de­lay in re­spond­ing to his queries, as he on­ly had a lim­it­ed time to pre­pare for the pro­posed in­ter­view.

“The in­tend­ed claimant is now left in the prej­u­di­cial po­si­tion of hav­ing to ac­quire and/or fa­mil­iarise him­self with these elab­o­rate and com­plex com­pe­ten­cies with­in 13 days in prepa­ra­tion for an in­ter­view which car­ries a weight­ing of 30 per cent to­wards a can­di­date’s to­tal score,” they said.

When the case was first filed, Ra­moutar ob­tained an in­junc­tion block­ing the com­mis­sion from fill­ing per­ma­nent va­can­cies pend­ing the out­come of the case.

The PSC, which was still per­mit­ted to make act­ing ap­point­ments, as it did with Ra­moutar de­spite his law­suit against it, ap­plied for the in­junc­tion to be dis­charged pri­or to Pul­chan’s re­tire­ment in March but was de­nied by Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran.

As part of his de­ci­sion in the case, Ram­cha­ran is­sued a de­c­la­ra­tion that the com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to in­tro­duce the com­pe­ten­cy in­ter­view was ir­ra­tional and un­rea­son­able.

He al­so is­sued an or­der quash­ing the de­ci­sion and the com­mis­sion was or­dered to pay Ra­moutar’s le­gal costs for bring­ing the case.

Ra­moutar was rep­re­sent­ed by Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, Ste­fan Ramkiss­soon and Rhea Khan.