By Alicia Chamely
A WIDOW whose husband had died in a vehicular accident 14 years ago was awarded $500,000 in damages, plus interest and legal costs after a High Court judge ruled that her rights were violated by the State.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Justice Kevin Ramcharan said the constitutional rights of Maureen Dilchan Maharajh were violated by the State in the handling of a dangerous driving case that led to her husband’s death 14 years ago.
Maharajah’s case stems from a vehicular accident that occurred in Manzanilla on August 15, 2011.
Maharajh, her husband Rajkumar and their two sons were travelling in their Mitsubishi L200, when they were hit head on by a green Nissan Cifero, driven by Ronald Farfan.
Rajkumar was killed, while Maharajh and her sons were severely injured.
Farfan was charged with Rajkumar Maharajh’s death by dangerous driving and the matter was assigned to the Sangre Grande Magistrates Court.
Charges were laid by Cpl Dindial Joseph, whom Maharajh kept in contact with.
However, as time went on, Maharajh became frustrated at the case being called and adjourned numerous times.
Joseph continued to assure her that everything was on track and would be fine.
According to the case, Maharajh discovered in late 2017 that the case against Farfan had been dropped in March of that year by Senior Magistrate Debra Quintyne for want of prosecution on account of the persistent non-attendance of Corporal Dindial Joseph.
Maharajh was shocked as she was never officially informed of the dismissal by police.
Joseph was bought up for disciplinary charges, however, these were dropped when provided a sick leave certificate excusing his absence.
Maharajh’s lawyers argued that Joseph had habitually missed court appearances, only being present for four of the 12 scheduled hearings.
Delivering his ruling, Justice Ramcharan said, “There are 2 aspects of the Claimant’s claim, firstly, the dismissal of the criminal charges and secondly the disciplinary proceedings against Corporal Joseph. With respect to the first, the Court is satisfied that there has been a breach of section 4(b) of the Constitution. The matter was dismissed against the defendant because of the consistent non-attendance of the Complainant.”
Ramcharan said, “The Court is also of the view that there has been a breach of section 5(2) of the constitution as it is clear that there is no proper mechanism to sufficiently ensure that complainants attend hearings or provide proper reasons for their absence.”
He said, “With respect to damages, the Court is of the view that this is an appropriate case for both compensatory and vindicatory damages. With respect to compensatory damages, the Court will award the sum of $350,000, and with respect to vindicatory damages, the sum of $150,000.”
Interests in the damages would be calculated at 2.5 percent per year from the day of the claim to the judgment date.
The Attorney General was also ordered to pay Maharajah’s legal costs.
Maharajh was represented by Anand Ramlogan, SC, leading Jayanti Lutchmedial, Kent Samlal, Jared Jagroo and Ganesh Saroop while Justay Guerra, Stefan Jaikaran, Celine Moosai and Che Richards appeared for Joseph.
