Justice William Ramlall yesterday ordered lawyers for the Raj Singh faction of the Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) to prove their innocence against the contempt action filed by Roger Harper.
The judge also ordered that the parties return to court on December 12 when Singh and the members of that faction will have to show cause why they should not be sent to jail for contempt of Court after allegedly disobeying a previous ruling by Justice James Bovell-Drakes earlier this year.
According to lawyer for Harper, in Bovell-Drake’s ruling both factions were prohibited from performing the duties or acting as members on behalf of the DCB.
However, it was learnt that the Singh faction had been holding meetings, organising tournaments, selecting teams and attending Guyana Cricket Board meetings, which is a violation of the court order.
This prompted Harper to file an action of contempt against the faction on Monday.
“… an Order that Rajendra Singh, Alfred Mentore, Anand Sanasie, Krischnchand Mangal, Dr. Ravi Persaud, Anand Kalladeen, Lalta Digammber, Colin Europe, Rohan Sarjoo, Ray Persaud, the Respondents herein, do stand committed to the Georgetown Prison for contempt of Court for holding and attending meetings, organizing competitions, selecting teams, and/or holding themselves out to be and/or acting as members of the Demerara Cricket Board or authorizing and instructing the same to be done, in complete disrespect, disobedience and disregard of their undertaking given to the Honourable Mr. Justice James Bovell-Drakes (in Chambers) dated the 21st day of April, 2011,” the order read.
This state of affairs was reached after the Bissoondyal Singh and Raj Singh factions held separate elections at the Lusignan and Wales Community Centres earlier this year.
Bissondyal Singh, at the time president of the DCB, had said that he was responsible for deciding where and when elections would have been held while the Raj Singh faction had stated that at the January 17 meeting, which was ordered by the Chief Justice, the majority of the executives agreed to the resolution that was read to have the elections held at Wales.
On January 18, the Raj Singh faction had called a press conference to announce that the elections were going to be held at Wales, which was contrary to what was reported after the Special General Meeting the day before.
On the day of that press conference the Bissoondyal Singh faction had successfully sought another injunction where Chief Justice Chang prohibited the then secretary Raj Singh from convening any meeting that was not sanctioned by the president.
After these separate elections on January 22 Justice Bovell-Drakes granted an injunction on February 9 barring Bissondyal Singh and members of his faction from acting as president and performing any duties of the DCB.
The injunction was applied for by Krishnchand Mangal through his Attorney Roysdale Forde on behalf of the Raj Singh faction of the DCB. Mangal is the secretary of the Raj Singh faction.
The defendants named by Mangal are Bissoondyal Singh, Roger Harper, Pretipaul Jaigobin, Davteerth Anandjit, Samaroo Jailall, Edward Richmond, Nigel Bissu, Neil Barry, Shawn Massiah, Manoj Narayan, Claude Raphael and Ronald Williams.
In the aftermath both sides had argued that they were the legitimate body to carry out the mandate of the DCB before it was finally ruled that neither faction should perform any duties of the DCB.
