Transfer of Chaudhry case to high court questioned

Suva High Court Judge Justice Daniel Goundar has raised concerns on the validity of the transfer of Fiji Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry's tax evasion case to the High court.

When Chaudhry's case was called this morning, Justice Goundar revealed that while preparing his ruling on Chaudhry's application for a bail variation, he could not find any records on whether the proper procedures were followed before the case was transferred to the High Court from the Magistrates court.

He said the only record is that former DPP Lawyer Aca Rawaya had asked for the case to be transferred and that there is no record on whether Chaudhry was represented and allowed to make submission on the request for transfer.

Judge Goundar said there was no formal application and it would seem that the Magistrate acted on his own accord to transfer the matter without giving the counsels an opportunity to make submissions on the matter.

He said the section under the Criminal Procedure Decree dealing with transfer of cases does not give the Magistrate powers to transfer the case on his own accord.

Justice Goundar told the DPP lawyer and defense counsel Rajendra Chaudhry that it needed to be established whether there was compliance with the relevant sections of the Criminal Procedure Decree and directed both lawyers to make formal submissions on the matter tomorrow.

He stressed that this is very important and instructed Rajendra Chaudhry that no further submissions on bail variation or other issues will be entertained until this matter is sorted out.

Chaudhry faces 12 counts of alleged money laundering and tax evasion.


Story by: Roneel Lal