Full Court rules in favour of NICIL, Multicinemas 
THE ex parte interim injunctive orders previously made by Justice James Bovell-Drakes against National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) and Multicinemas Guyana Inc. have been discharged by the Full Court.
Acting Chief Justice Ian Chang, who sat with Justice Rishi Persaud, delivering the decision last October 14, recalled that the case concerns ex parte applications made by NICIL and Multicinemas Inc. for an order to discharge an interim injunction issued by Justice Bovell-Drakes on August 23 on an ex parte application by Toolsie Persaud Limited (TPL).
Justice Chang said the applications before the Full Court were made within four days of the refusal of a previous ex parte application by NICIL and Multicinemas to the same judge for the discharge of the ex parte interim injunction.
The ex parte injunction granted by Justice Bovell-Drakes had restrained the defendants  from passing and or receiving title to the property or selling or disposing the tracts of land being a portion of Plantation Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara.
The judgement, among other things, noted that on  May 25, 2011, the Government of Guyana, through the Lands and Surveys Commissioner, gifted the said area of land to NICIL  under the Public Corporations Act 1988 and published it in the Official Gazette Legal  Supplement on August 6, 2011. By an agreement of sale and purchase, dated May 14, 2011, NICIL sold the land to Multicinemas Inc.
By order made under the Public Corporations Act 1988 and published in the Official Gazette Legal Supplement of August 8, 2011, the same area of land was vested by NICIL to Multicinemas.
Chief Justice Chang said an examination of the indorsement of claim to the High Court revealed that, by action filed on August 23, 2011, TPL sought certain reliefs, including a declaration that the order made under the Public Corporations Act and advertised in the Official Gazette of August 8, 2011 is null and void and incapable of effecting a  transfer of title of the same land.
He observed that it was only after TPL’s petition for a declaration of title, filed in 1993, was dismissed by the Caribbean Court of Justice on July 25, 2008, in relation to areas K. N. J and O, that TPL filed action.
Justice Chang added: “This Court is of the view that, apart from its own delusion that the State had not become the owner of areas K. N. J and O and the consequential filing of the 1993 petition, nothing prevented TPL from seeking the remedies sought in the 2008 action, as far back as three months after October 9, 1992, when the lands were gazetted as ripe for the passing of  transport.
“Having taken the position, quite wrongly, that the title to areas K. N. J. and O were extinguished and acquired by prescription and having failed in that petition, TPL, 15 years later, has re-acknowledged the State’s title to the said lands in action 440 of 2008 and has sought to have the 1987 November agreement of sale and purchase enforced in relation to those lands.  
“In the view of this court, not only is TPL guilty of laches, but the institution of those proceedings smacks of an abuse of the court’s process,” he said.
After referring to other aspects of the unanimous judgement, the Acting Chief Justice also awarded costs, in the sum of $50,000 each, to NICIL and Multicinemas.
Mr. Anil Nandlall appeared for NICIL, Mr. Ronald Burch-Smith for Multicinemas and Senior Counsel Robin Stoby for TPL.