State loses bid to demolish mandir

A PUNDIT has won his legal battle with the State to prevent the demolition of his temple.

Pundit Param Basdeo Maraj, president of the Las Lomas No. 2 Devotional Ramayan Group, took the State to court after he was told the temple and an adjoining ashram would be demolished.

Justice Frank Seepersad, sitting in the San Fernando High Court, yesterday delivered his decision in the lawsuit filed by the group which contended it was offered a lease for the parcel of land on which the temple and ashram are built.

The judge was expected to give his decision next Wednesday, however, it was brought up and he delivered his ruling yesterday.

In a 19-page decision, Seepersad declared that there was a binding agreement between the State and the group for the acre of land. He also ordered the State to pay the pundit's legal costs.

Attorneys Alvin Pariagsingh and Kavita Sarran represented the group while Kelisha Bellow represented the State.

When the case came up for hearing on Wednesday, the judge was expected to rule on the group's lawsuit, however, the State disclosed that while Cabinet approved the lease on April 14, 2014, on February 14, it recinded the decision.

According to the State, the decision to take back the land was based on plans to establish a training and farming institute as part of the Centeno Livestock Station for research purposes. However, in the witness statement of acting director of Animal Production and Health at the Ministry of Agriculture Dream Carnarvon provided a Gazetted copy of a land and surveys report, dated December 4, 1943, which spoke of the decision by the Government to establish the institute.

Seepersad pointed out that Carnarvon provided proof that the decision was taken 76 years-ago. He also found, as a fact, that acquisition of the lands, based on the evidence, had been deemed abandoned some 50 years ago.

Seepersad said, "The undeniable reality is that the State did not discharge the mandate for which it sought to acquire the lands as the lands were not used for the public purpose which was identified at the commencement of the acquisition process.

"The land, if it was acquired (and it was not ), remained under the authority of the State. On the evidence, Centeno took no actual possession of the land for over a half a century and the court felt that the position adopted by the state in its defence was technical unacceptable, illogical and misleading."

Maraj, in his lawsuit, said he accepted the offer by the Commissioner of State Lands, in April 2015, but the agreement for the 30-year lease was never completed.

Seepersad said, based on the evidence, there existed a "valid and subsisting agreement for a lease" between the Commissioner of Stand Lands and Maraj.

He said the court formed the view there was a "clear and unequivocal offer which was accepted," and the correspondence between the Commissioner of State Lands and Maraj "constituted a complete contract."

Seepersad also said it was alarming that the Cabinet, in its January 28, 2019, note, said a letter of offer was presented to Maraj, but directors of the group did not accept the letter of offer. The State's evidence also noted that the Cabinet note said, "An individual wrote a letter which in no way indicated he was acting on behalf of the group or authorised to do so, this was not considered as an acceptance by the Group."

Seepersad said, "It is rather alarming that the the instant matter was not addressed in the Cabinet note when, before the court for its determination, was the issue as to whether there was acceptance of the offer dated April 14 , 2015 and whether an agreement to lease had been effected.

"With an alarming degree of frequency, there seems to be a lack of proper and effective dissemination of information between different arms of the State as the ‘right hand is often unaware as to what the left hand is doing.’ This degree of institutional dysfunction should be addressed as a matter of urgency."