| … sued for trespassing,Cheap NFL Jerseys, damaging crops on Hogg Island farmA court has awarded a Charlestown businessman over $5M in an eight-year-old case filed against the Region Three administration and a construction company whom he accused of destroying his farmlands at Hogg Island, Essequibo River.The case was filed by Balkaran Sukhu, and court documents named the defendants as the Regional Democratic Council Region Three and Shaffie Khan who operated Atlas Construction.Charlestown businessman, Balkaran Sukhu, who was awarded over $5M in damages by a court yesterday.Yesterday, Justice B.S. Roy awarded Sukhu $5M in general damages along with special damages to the tune of $270,000 which represented compensation for the destruction of 1,350 sucker plants.In addition to $200,Cheap Jerseys,000 court costs, the defendants must pay a six percent interest on the awarded sums, retroactive to July 2003.Sukhu, who was represented by Attorneys-at-law Robin Stoby , S.C., and M. Khan, in court documents, claimed that he is the owner of 100 acres of agriculture land in Hogg Island, Essequibo River.This was evidenced by supporting documents which included a transport.The plaintiff said that he would visit the farm from time to time but left an employee, Roy Narine,Cheap NFL Jerseys Store, to run the place in his absence.In 2001, Sukhu started planting eddoes and plaintains at the farm with the intention to manufacture chips. In August 2001, he wrote the then Region Three Chairman,Cheap Jerseys, Esau Dookhie,China Soccer Jerseys, of his plans to establish a manufacturing facility and also pointed out the need for ample facilities for drainage, irrigation and roads. There was no response to the letter.Court documents said that Dookhie owned 14 acres on the island and was part of the Hogg Island Development Programme which commissioned a survey of the western end. However, Sukhu was not told of this survey and no permission was obtained from him to conduct the survey on his farmlands.Based on the survey, a plan was done to carry out infrastructural works for western Hogg Island and this was commissioned in 1997.While other farmers gave permission for excavation works on their lands, there was no evidence that Sukhu gave consent.The court, in its judgment, also disclosed that the other defendant, Khan, a nephew-in-law of the RDC Chairman, won the contract to build a new dam and canal. Between January 2002 and July 2003, Sukhu claimed, the contractor’s dragline and excavators passed over his lands causing damage to crops.The Plaintiff claimed that a dam and canal now run through his lands with three creeks that once flowed, now blocked. As a result, he filed claims for damage to his lands as well as loss of his crops.In 2001, Sukhu also said that he suffered damages when the dragline came back and started to ‘lick’ down all the plantain suckers in an particular section.His employee, Narine, had this to say in court papers.“Some were thrown in the trench. Mr. Saffie came with some men and cut up the tubers so so that they could go through the koker to the river. It was ‘blocked’ up. The dragline then picked them up from the koker and threw it in the river.”Judge Roy, in his handing down his decision said he had to determine whether permission was give to access Sukhu’s farmlands and whether there were actions to encourage the defendants to undertake works on the land.The court ruled that a letter to the then RDC Chairman outlining plans to establish a manufacturing facility there and calling better drainage could not be viewed as encouragement to enter the same land to undertake construction works.According to the Judge, the excuse advanced by Dookhie for the lack of communication with Sukhu could hold no grounds since he had correspondence in his possession of the man’s address, business place and telephone numbers.“Instead, the evidence reveal that the RDC Chairman throughout this exercise, displayed a reckless and total disregard for the proprietary rights and interests of the Plaintiff and as the rest of the evidence would reveal, the works had to be completed at any costs,” Judge Roy said in his judgment.The Judge determined that Sukhu lost an estimated 1,350 plantain suckers and ordered compensation of $200 each.He also pointed out that Sukhu’s land was never compulsorily acquired and the “defendants cynically and repeatedly disregarded the rights of the Plaintiff to his property.“These actions, in my opinion, were oppressive,Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys, deliberate, arbitrary and unjustifiable and their trespass was of an aggravated kind and for which I make an award of $5M as general damages.”Attorneys-at-law Doodnauth Singh, S.C. along with S. Rupnauth, represented RDC Region 3 while Mr. V. Persaud and Ms. V. Persaud were the lawyers for Khan, the contractor. |
