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Allegations, counter allegations flow as judicial row escalates

May 06, 2009 News

The row between embattled Registrar on leave of the Supreme Court Sita Ramlal and the Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Carl Singh, has gone up another notch with the Registrar describing as unfortunate, allegations made against her in a recent press release issued by the Office of Justice Singh.
The acting chancellor had made several allegations of financial impropriety against the Registrar which countered an earlier statement that was sent by Miss Ramlal to the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon.
The issue being dealt with concerns a programme that was aimed at reducing the backlog of cases in the High Court for which judges were paid a fee of $15,000 for each cased cleared up.
Both parties have described each other’s allegations as baseless and have vowed that they will not be intimidated.
The Acting Chancellor, in his statement, which was issued last week, made accusations that the Registrar over a period of a few months had approved a payment to herself of over half a million dollars, as a related disbursement of the backlog exercise.
He claimed that he is unaware of any reason justifying the Registrar’s entitlement to such a sum.
But in response, the Registrar said that the payment was approved by the government. She referred to a letter from the Office of the President which was dated November 1, 2005 and signed by Jennifer Webster for Dr. Roger Luncheon.
The Acting Chancellor had also pointed to documentary evidence of several improprieties which he said was forwarded to the relevant authorities for investigation.
These include several payments for alleged expenditure relating to what has been described as bench or bar meetings.
The Acting Chancellor said there never were any such meetings. He also referred to payments for the alleged supply of food for the Supreme Court at $2,500 per plate; payment for the alleged sewing and supply of curtains to the judge’s quarters in Berbice; printing of forms and documents in use by the court in a little room created above the registrar’s office which payments were made for the alleged supply of these documents from external contractors and the award of maintenance/ building contracts worth several hundred thousand dollars repeatedly to the same contractor within a short period of time.
Reference was also made to payment of sums totaling $3.4M and $4.1M on Christmas staff parties for the Supreme Court for two consecutive years.
But Miss Ramlal said that prior to the appointment of the Acting Chancellor there were no staff parties held in the Supreme Court compound in the evenings.
She added that it was on the expressed instructions of the Chancellor that these staff parties were held. She said that the scale and scope of the staff parties were specifically directed by the Acting Chancellor.
“The payments for these events have all been audited by the Auditor General’s Department and tabled and approved by the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament,” a statement from the Registrar said.
The Registrar is on administrative leave.
The statement went on to say that after the institution of the criminal proceedings against Miss Ramlal, a request was made by her for the Auditor General to audit the accounts of the Supreme Court prior to her request to be sent on leave.
This audit has reportedly commenced and is expected to be completed soon.

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