Sanjeev Teeluckdharry: “The Constituency Clerk affair is far from over”

Simla Kistnen is seeking damages of Rs 50 million from former minister Sawmynaden for the losses suffered in the Constituency Clerk affair. Thus, his lawyer, Sanjeev Teeluckdharry believes that in the Supreme Court, this case will be “revisited”.

This is only a postponement. This is what Mr Sanjeev Teeluckdharry, in essence, makes clear, who acted as a watching brief for Simla Kistnen during the trial brought against Yogida Sawmynaden by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in the “Constituency Clerk” case before the intermediate courtyard. The ex-minister obtained the benefit of the doubt on Thursday May 30, the magistrate Anusha Rawoah having highlighted the contradictions in the version of the widow of Soopramanien Kistnen, former MSM agent at No. 8, whose charred body was found in a cane field in Telfair, on October 18, 2020. “She did not strike me as a witness of truth”, underlined the magistrate.

While awaiting a decision from the DPP regarding a possible appeal of the decision of the intermediate court, Mr. Sanjeev Teeluckdharry, who is part of the group of lawyers known as the Avengers, recalls that the civil case claiming damages of Rs 50 million of Simla Kistnen against Yogida Sawmynaden will be heard before the Supreme Court on June 6, 2024, to be determined on the merits. She claims to have suffered damage after the former minister made a “false declaration” to the MRA, to the effect that she was employed as a Constituency Clerk and received a monthly salary of Rs 15,000. had been deprived of assistance from the MRA during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We will have the opportunity to see Yogida Sawmynaden under cross-examination, this time in the witness box,” highlights Mr. Sanjeev Teeluckdharry. Thus, he said, “far from being over, the Constituency Clerk case will be 'revisited'.”

Me Sanjeev Teeluckdharry deplores, at the same time, the pressures that Simla Kistnen would have suffered during the trial in this case. “The CCID wanted to arrest Simla Kistnen in the middle of the trial and file a provisional charge against her,” he says. For him, the summoning of Soopramanien Kistnen's widow to the CCID was nothing other than an “attempt at intimidation”. “Why this relentlessness when the trial was underway? » says the lawyer.

He is convinced that the assassination of Soopramanien Kistnen and the “Constituency Clerk” affair are linked. Moreover, according to Me Sanjeev Teeluckdharry, not only should the DPP make public the report of former magistrate Vidya Mungroo-Jugurnath, who chaired the judicial investigation into the death of the former MSM agent at No. 8 , but he should also “consider filing criminal charges in cases of financial fraud brought to light following the judicial investigation”.

Isn’t that relentlessness? “Apart from the fact that there was murder with premeditation and conspiracy to cover up, this involves hundreds of millions of rupees of public funds which were misappropriated during the COVID pandemic,” replies Mr. Sanjeev Teeluckdharry.

He subsequently regrets not having been able to intervene during the “Constituency Clerk” case in the intermediate court. “The court did not grant permission to Simla Kistnen's lawyers, as a watching brief, to address the court. We were unable to ask questions of the witnesses, although we knew all the facts of this case. Unlike a private prosecution, we do not have a role in the prosecutions brought by the DPP's office, the lawyers from the DPP's office were in charge of the case,” explains Me Sanjeev Teeluckdharry.

The Supreme Court, he recalls, had ruled that “a party holding a watching brief cannot address the court and its role is confined strictly and defined by the very expression 'watching brief' itself and that is to merely watch or observe proceedings notwithstanding his interest in the outcome”. However, at the Assizes, in the Michaela Harte case, Judge Feknah had authorized lawyers in the capacity of watching brief to ask questions during the cross-examination of witnesses. Thus, he argues for an amendment to criminal procedure so that a lawyer representing a client as a watching brief can ask questions and cross-examine witnesses.

For Me Sanjeev Teeluckdharry, there is no question of giving up: “We must continue to fight so that all justice is done in the memory of Soopramanien Kistnen. »