The Privy Coun­cil has up­held a T&T Court of Ap­peal rul­ing on costs in a dis­pute in which the ap­pel­lants had made al­le­ga­tions of fraud and lost.

A judge­ment on this was giv­en on Thurs­day, De­cem­ber 8.

The mat­ter was heard be­fore Lord Kitchen with whom Lord Brig­gs, Lord Ham­blen, Lord Leg­gatt, and Lord Bur­rows agreed.

Ap­pel­lants were Phyl­lis Ram­per­sad and Bhim Ram­per­sad ver­sus Deo Ram­lal, Rosi­na Ram­lal, Lochan Dips­ing and Ku­mar Bir­bal. The mat­ter arose from an ear­li­er T&T Court of Ap­peal rul­ing.

The ap­pel­lants were rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan SC, Ben Jones [in­struct­ed by Ganesh Sa­roop (Trinidad)].  The re­spon­dents were rep­re­sent­ed by Zel­i­ca Haynes-Soo Hon, Ker­ri-Ann Oliv­er­ie [in­struct­ed by Al-Rawi, Haynes-Soo Hon & Co (Trinidad)].

The ap­peal con­cerned the gen­er­al rules gov­ern­ing the award of costs af­ter a tri­al in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The ap­peal arose in the con­text of a dis­pute in which al­le­ga­tions "of the most se­ri­ous kind" were made by the ap­pel­lants, Phyl­lis Ram­per­sad and her hus­band, Bhim Ram­per­sad, against the re­spon­dents.

The Privy Coun­cil's rul­ing stat­ed that these al­le­ga­tions, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions of fraud­u­lent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and forgery, were all re­ject­ed by the judge, Dean-Ar­mor­er J, af­ter a full tri­al.

"The judge then made an or­der that the claim be dis­missed and the ap­pel­lants should pay the re­spon­dents their costs of the ac­tion, such costs to be as­sessed by the Reg­is­trar of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and To­ba­go," the Law Lords not­ed.

The ap­pel­lants ap­pealed to the Court of Ap­peal against the judge’s or­der.

"Ul­ti­mate­ly, they did not pur­sue their ap­peal against that part of the or­der which dis­missed their claim, but they did pur­sue their ap­peal against the judge’s or­der for costs. The Court of Ap­peal dis­missed that ap­peal, hold­ing it to be an abuse of process," the rul­ing said.

De­tail­ing the Privy Coun­cil's 55-point rul­ing, which con­clud­ed that the ap­pel­lants' ap­peal "must be dis­missed", it was stat­ed that their sub­mis­sions could not be ac­cept­ed.

The Law Lords rul­ing al­so stat­ed: "The ap­pel­lants had made a de­ci­sion to aban­don their ap­peal on the mer­its at the last mo­ment and their ap­pli­ca­tion to the Court of Ap­peal for per­mis­sion to ap­peal against the or­der for costs had failed. In these cir­cum­stances, the or­der made by the Court of Ap­peal fell well with­in the scope of a rea­son­able ex­er­cise of its dis­cre­tion and there is no ba­sis up­on which it would be prop­er or ap­pro­pri­ate for the Board to in­ter­fere with it."