Latest update December 12th, 2024 1:00 AM
Govt. to move to CCJ over sale of waterfront property to BK Marines
Kaieteur News – Attorney General, (AG) Anil Nandlall SC has vowed that the Government will go the length for justice in the case filed to repossess the prime waterfront property sold to local company, BK Marine.
Owner of BK Marines, Brian ‘BK’ Tiwari
The AG made this disclosure on Tuesday’s airing of his programme “Issues in the News,” days after the Full Court dismissed his appeal in the matter. On September 18, 2023, Full Court Justices Sandil Kissoon and Jo Ann Barlow struck out Nandlall’s appeal, on the grounds that the Attorney General failed to establish a proper locus standi in the matter and the appeal filed was unmeritorious among other things.
Speaking about the ruling on the show, Nandlall said that he will be taking his case to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The AG noted that he believes his probability of success is greater at the Apex court.
He pointed to an instance when “the High Court told me I have no case; the Appeal Court said I had no case and the CCJ did not want to hear me on the matter but they ruled in my favour because it was such a clear case before them.”
With regard to the recent determination of the Full Court in the matter involving BK Marines, Nandlall said he is prepared to travel the long journey to the CCJ. He noted that in his view, the Minister of Finance Winston Jordan disposed of the property without authorisation.
“The Government in my view has every right to sue the company, the minister as well as the purchaser…Here the Court is not even hearing the Government. The Government is being allowed to put forward its case yet the Court is telling the Government that it is a meddler and strikes out the case without even hearing it,” Nandlall lamented.
Nandlall was seeking to have the sale of the lands at Water Street or Mudlots 1 and 2; Lot F of Mudlot 3 and Lots A, B and D, North Cummingsburg, Georgetown be declared illegal, unlawful, null, void, repugnant and contrary to public policy.
He insists that the lands were sold at a gross undervalue and way below market value, and that BK Marine was unjustly enriched by $5 billion through this transaction. However, High Court Judge, Justice Brassington Reynolds, stuck out his legal action. Justice Reynolds dismissed the case ruling that while the Attorney General is authorised to bring an action for misfeasance in public office against Jordan, he did not, in this case, satisfy the elements of the tort.
Nandlall later challenged a decision describing the ruling as “one of the most shocking decisions I have ever witnessed in my brief career at the Bar” and committed to challenge the decision.
Consequently, he filed a Notice of Appeal at the Full Court on September 28, against the decision of the High Court Judge. In the legal document, the Attorney General sought from the Full Court, “…an Order setting aside, reversing and/or vacating the decision…” of Justice Reynolds.
The Attorney General argued in his appeal that the Trial Judge erred and his decision was misconceived in law when he dismissed the Statement of Claim on the basis of an abuse of the court’s process as there was no viable cause of action on basis of Misfeasance in Public Office and sought to make findings on the evidence when there were only pleadings before the court on the substantive case and no evidence had yet been filed, and no evidence was taken from any of the witnesses to test the veracity of the witnesses and weighing of the evidence.
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