Derek Achong

The state has been or­dered to pay al­most $3 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to a busi­ness­man whose trac­tors were im­prop­er­ly seized by po­lice as part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to il­le­gal quar­ry­ing on State land in east Trinidad.

De­liv­er­ing a writ­ten judg­ment dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad up­held Faizal Ali’s mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar law­suit over the con­tin­ued il­le­gal de­ten­tion of his ex­ca­va­tor and crawler trac­tors.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence, in Sep­tem­ber 2015, Ali rent­ed the equip­ment to a com­pa­ny that was seek­ing to dig ponds in Guaico, San­gre Grande for tilapia farm­ing.

The fol­low­ing month, po­lice and sol­diers raid­ed the job site and seized the equip­ment as part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to il­le­gal quar­ry­ing on state land.

Al­though Ali was not among the trio that was even­tu­al­ly charged by po­lice and re­quest­ed that the trac­tors be re­turned, they re­mained de­tained at the T&T De­fence Force base in Cu­mu­to.

In his judg­ment, Seep­er­sad not­ed that un­der the State Lands Act, po­lice of­fi­cers are al­lowed to seize ve­hi­cles and equip­ment which are sus­pect­ed of car­ry­ing ma­te­r­i­al from state lands with­out per­mis­sion.

How­ev­er, Seep­er­sad was care­ful to note that at the time of the seizure of Ali’s equip­ment, it was not in use and mere­ly parked at the job site.

He al­so not­ed that for such ve­hi­cles and equip­ment to be for­feit­ed by a mag­is­trate un­der the leg­is­la­tion, peo­ple must be con­vict­ed of an of­fence.

Seep­er­sad not­ed that cas­es against the trio who were charged, are still on­go­ing.

“In this case, the fail­ure of the de­fen­dant to pro­vide any ev­i­dence that the heavy equip­ment were in­volved in the ac­tiv­i­ties men­tioned in Sec­tion 26 of the Act means that the seizure, with­out war­rant, is noth­ing short of ap­palling,” Seep­er­sad said.

Seep­er­sad al­so crit­i­cised the po­lice for fail­ing to do prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­fore con­tin­u­ing the de­ten­tion.

“Po­lice of­fi­cers ex­er­cise sig­nif­i­cant au­thor­i­ty but they must dis­charge their au­thor­i­ty re­spon­si­bly and just­ly,” Seep­er­sad said.

“Where au­thor­i­ty has been abused, there­by caus­ing stress, em­bar­rass­ment and loss up­on cit­i­zens, the per­pe­tra­tors must be held ac­count­able,” he added.

While Seep­er­sad ac­cept­ed that Ali was en­ti­tled to com­pen­sa­tion for the fi­nan­cial hard­ship he suf­fered by not hav­ing ac­cess to his equip­ment, Seep­er­sad re­fused to grant the $6,500 a day for the five year pe­ri­od that the equip­ment had been de­tained, which was cal­cu­lat­ed at well over $10 mil­lion.

Seep­er­sad sug­gest­ed that $2,933,000 was more ap­pro­pri­ate as he fac­tored in the age of the equip­ment, com­pa­ra­ble fees charged by com­peti­tors, tax­es and op­er­a­tional costs in­clud­ing pe­ri­od­ic main­te­nance.

Seep­er­sad al­so not­ed that it would be un­like­ly that the equip­ment could have been rent­ed by Ali every day dur­ing the pe­ri­od, es­pe­cial­ly due to the down­turn in the na­tion­al econ­o­my caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

He al­so ruled that Ali was en­ti­tled to $25,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages, which was award­ed by him to high­light the court’s con­dem­na­tion of the op­pres­sive and ar­bi­trary con­duct by of­fi­cers of the State.

The state was al­so or­dered to pay Ali’s le­gal costs for the law­suit, which will be cal­cu­lat­ed based on the pay­out he is set to re­ceive.

Ali was rep­re­sent­ed by De­vesh Ma­haraj and Ravi Dols­ingh while Ryan­ka Rag­bir, Kristy Mo­han, Adana Hosang, Zara Smith and An­dre Cole rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.