Court clears way for ASJA cheating lawsuit

Derek Achong

The AS­JA Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment has lost its ap­peal against a judge’s de­ci­sion to al­low a par­ent to pur­sue a ju­di­cial re­view over the penal­ty im­posed on his daugh­ter af­ter she was caught cheat­ing in an in­ter­nal ex­am­i­na­tion at AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do.

De­liv­er­ing their rul­ing on Thurs­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Va­heist Kokaram and Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well dis­missed the pro­ce­dur­al ap­peal brought by the board, the school and its act­ing prin­ci­pal, Aliyah Amars­ingh-Mo­hammed.

In the ap­peal, at­tor­neys for the group, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence-Ma­haraj, ar­gued that the High Court judge erred in grant­i­ng the par­ent per­mis­sion to bring the ju­di­cial re­view claim over the school’s dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

Jus­tice Kokaram, who de­liv­ered the rul­ing, found that the judge act­ed prop­er­ly in al­low­ing the mat­ter to pro­ceed. He said the school could be re­gard­ed as a pub­lic body, even though a de­nom­i­na­tion­al board man­ages it, as its ac­tions car­ried a suf­fi­cient pub­lic law el­e­ment.

He said: “On the ev­i­dence as ad­vanced by the par­ties on the hear­ing to set aside leave it has been made clear that the de­ci­sion un­der re­view was made by a pub­lic body ex­er­cis­ing a pub­lic func­tion which has a suf­fi­cient pub­lic law di­men­sion and is a mat­ter which would call for the court’s scruti­ny and su­per­vi­sion.”

Al­though the rul­ing clears the way for the case to pro­ceed, Jus­tice Kokaram ques­tioned whether lit­i­ga­tion would as­sist the child.

“Sec­ondary school comes with its own chal­lenges for young peo­ple to which the pres­sures of court ex­pe­ri­ences as a lit­i­gant may add very lit­tle to that ex­pe­ri­ence,” he said.

He warned that while the teacher-stu­dent re­la­tion­ship must be reg­u­lat­ed, it must not be un­der­mined.

“We must be mind­ful of too much law may dry up the car­ing in­stincts of our teach­ers freez­ing in­to in­ac­tion for fear of the re­view of the law as be­ing over­ly op­pres­sive in in­still­ing dis­ci­pline,” Kokaram said.

Jus­tice Kokaram en­cour­aged the par­ties to con­sid­er me­di­a­tion.

“Courts must be sen­si­tive to these prob­lems and it is in the best in­ter­est of the child that the mat­ter is best suit­ed for res­o­lu­tion at me­di­a­tion for a holis­tic treat­ment of the un­der­cur­rents of this dis­pute and ma­ture ac­tion by all to con­tin­ue to build a car­ing and learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment for the child,” he said.

The law­suit arose from an in­ci­dent on June 14, 2024, dur­ing the school’s term three ex­am­i­na­tions, when the Form One stu­dent was al­leged­ly found with unau­tho­rised notes dur­ing her Ge­og­ra­phy ex­am.

Af­ter a dis­ci­pli­nary con­fer­ence, the school im­posed an au­to­mat­ic penal­ty of ze­ro marks for all sub­jects on her re­port card, cit­ing its stu­dent hand­book pol­i­cy and claim­ing it had no dis­cre­tion.

The child’s fa­ther, a busi­ness­man, filed the claim, ar­gu­ing that the de­ci­sion was dis­pro­por­tion­ate, un­rea­son­able and breached prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

He ar­gued that the rul­ing af­fect­ed his daugh­ter’s ed­u­ca­tion­al prospects and vi­o­lat­ed her right to a fair and ac­cu­rate as­sess­ment un­der the Ed­u­ca­tion Act and the Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct.

The board and the school chal­lenged the case, ar­gu­ing that the prin­ci­pal’s de­ci­sion was an in­ter­nal dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ter not sub­ject to ju­di­cial re­view as it was not statu­to­ry in na­ture. They al­so ar­gued that the fa­ther failed to dis­close all rel­e­vant facts when fil­ing the claim.

Jus­tice Kokaram re­ject­ed that ar­gu­ment and said the fa­ther could not be fault­ed.

“The in­for­ma­tion which it is al­leged that the fa­ther failed to dis­close in his ap­pli­ca­tion for leave does not de­tract from the core el­e­ments of the case which was made out be­fore the court be­low,” he said.

He al­so found a clear link be­tween the school’s dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion and na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion pol­i­cy.

“There is a nexus be­tween the act of dis­ci­pline car­ried out by the school and the na­tion­al poli­cies pro­mul­gat­ed un­der the au­thor­i­ty of the Ed­u­ca­tion Act,” he said.

“The core func­tion of the school as recog­nised by the tri­al judge is to pro­vide an ed­u­ca­tion not in a pri­vate fa­cil­i­ty re­moved from pub­lic scruti­ny,” he added.

The par­ent is rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Sunil and Varin Gopaul-Go­sine. The board, the school and the act­ing prin­ci­pal are rep­re­sent­ed by Roger Kawals­ingh, Ash­ley Roopchand­ingh and Re­shard Khan.