A po­lice con­sta­ble ac­cused of mur­der has been giv­en the green light to pur­sue a law­suit over a de­ci­sion by the po­lice to charge him for am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion un­der the Firearms Act af­ter he was ar­rest­ed and de­tained un­der Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions for the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

On Mon­day, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad grant­ed PC Ja­son Bee­tam leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view case over the tech­ni­cal le­gal is­sue.

Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, in ear­ly No­vem­ber, Bee­tam, of Tem­ple Street, Beau­car­ro Road, Freeport, was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of live­stock farmer Vish­nu Lal­la.

Lal­la, 63, of Cou­va, was ab­duct­ed while tend­ing to his an­i­mals near his home on No­vem­ber 8, last year.

Lal­la’s ve­hi­cle was seen speed­ing away from the area, and lat­er that day, a rel­a­tive re­ceived a $100,000 ran­som de­mand for his re­lease.

The burnt shell of Lal­la’s ve­hi­cle was found in Es­per­an­za.

Lal­la’s body was found in a for­est area off Brechin Cas­tle Road in Cou­va the fol­low­ing day.

A post-mortem re­vealed that he died of a gun­shot wound.

Lal­la’s lawyer Keron Ramkhal­whan, of Ju­ris X Cham­bers, not­ed that his client was ar­rest­ed un­der the pro­vi­sions of the reg­u­la­tions, and such was utilised to ex­tend his de­ten­tion be­fore be­ing charged.

When he was even­tu­al­ly charged for Lal­la’s mur­der along­side Govin­dra Lack­ram, 26, of Bas­ta Hall Vil­lage, Cou­va, he (Bee­tam) was al­so slapped with a charge un­der the Firearms Act for pos­ses­sion of 19 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

“This claim does not chal­lenge, nor does it seek to ar­gue, whether the Ap­pli­cant was in fact in pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion,” Ramkhal­whan said.

“Rather, it is de­lib­er­ate­ly and nar­row­ly framed to re­view the ‘charg­ing de­ci­sion,’” he added.

Ramkhal­whan point­ed out that if his client was in­stead charged un­der the reg­u­la­tions, he would face a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $100,000 fine and im­pris­on­ment for five years in­stead of fac­ing a max­i­mum $500,000 fine and im­pris­on­ment for 15 years un­der the Firearms Act.

“Based on the ev­i­dence in this case, the po­lice ser­vice has adopt­ed an un­law­ful pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy or prac­tice (charg­ing for pos­ses­sion of firearm and am­mu­ni­tion con­trary to the Firearms Act when the po­lice have ex­er­cised emer­gency pow­ers through­out the in­ves­ti­ga­tion) with the in­tent sole­ly to charge for an of­fence that at­tracts a more se­vere penal­ty,” he added.

Through the law­suit, Bee­tam is seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion over the de­ci­sion and an or­der quash­ing it.

In grant­i­ng Bee­tam leave, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad di­rect­ed that the case be served on the of­fi­cer, who laid the charge with­in 14 days.

The case is sched­uled to come up for hear­ing on Feb­ru­ary 26.

Bee­tam is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by An­war Ho­sein.