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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Three freed of fraud at Licensing Division after prosecution fails to show

by

Derek Achong
30 days ago
20250626
The Licensing Office at Kelly Village, Caroni.

The Licensing Office at Kelly Village, Caroni.

Re­peat­ed de­lays in pros­e­cut­ing three men for al­leged­ly com­mit­ting fraud at the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion have led to them be­ing freed.

Tem­po­rary clerk Sudesh Rad­hakissoon, 49-year-old mo­tor ve­hi­cle in­spec­tor Er­rol Su­per­sad, and 51-year-old com­put­er tech­ni­cian Adri­an Mo­hammed were dis­charged by Mas­ter Adia Mo­hammed (no re­la­tion) yes­ter­day af­ter she re­fused to grant an­oth­er ad­journ­ment of the case re­quest­ed by pros­e­cu­tors.

The trio was charged in Oc­to­ber 2023 fol­low­ing a re­port from a mem­ber of the pub­lic, who dis­cov­ered that his Nis­san Navara was trans­ferred to some­one else with­out his knowl­edge.

The re­port was ini­tial­ly re­ceived by the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er, who trans­ferred it to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Fraud Squad for a crim­i­nal probe.

Rad­hakissoon and Su­per­sad, who was as­signed to the Ca­roni Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion, were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, while Mo­hammed was slapped with two charges for ut­ter­ing forged doc­u­ments.

All three were be­fore the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate’s Court be­fore their case was trans­ferred to the High Court based on the pro­vi­sions of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act (AJI­PA).

The leg­is­la­tion sought to re­duce pro­tract­ed de­lays in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem by abol­ish­ing lengthy pre­lim­i­nary en­quiries be­fore mag­is­trates by re­plac­ing them with quick­er suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ings be­fore High Court Mas­ters.

The suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ing was sched­uled to com­mence on June 10 but was post­poned by Mas­ter Mo­hammed af­ter pros­e­cu­tors in­di­cat­ed they were not ready to pro­ceed.

When the case was re­called three days lat­er, pros­e­cu­tors did not at­tend the hear­ing and the trio’s lawyers re­quest­ed that the case be dis­missed against them.

Mas­ter Mo­hammed de­clined as she ad­journed the case to this week to give pros­e­cu­tors a fi­nal op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­ply.

Pros­e­cu­tors were again ab­sent when the case was called on Tues­day.

When they did ar­rive at the court, they re­quest­ed yet an­oth­er ad­journ­ment but were re­fused.

Su­per­sad’s lawyer Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, who was a se­nior State pros­e­cu­tor be­fore go­ing in­to pri­vate prac­tice, sug­gest­ed that the con­duct of the pros­e­cu­tors in the case demon­strat­ed a mis­use of the AJI­PA pro­vi­sions.

“Al­though the leg­is­la­tion al­lowed cas­es to be trans­ferred from the Mag­is­trate’s Court to the Mas­ter’s Court, giv­ing par­ties more time to pre­pare, the pros­e­cu­tion still failed to com­ply,” Ramb­ha­jan said.

She said that her client had been wait­ing ea­ger­ly for two years for the case to com­mence so that he could seek to clear his name.

Rad­hakissoon was rep­re­sent­ed by Rus­sell Warn­er, while Michael Rooplal and Vis­han Gir­war rep­re­sent­ed Adri­an Mo­hammed.


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