The Jagai–Gangadin Affair: Justice on Trial

Superintendent of Police Ashik Jagai stepped into the Intermediate Court under heavy escort, his bulletproof vest stark against the morning glare. Cameras clicked, onlookers jostled, and whispers cut through the humid air. To the casual passer-by, it might have seemed another high-profile corruption hearing. In reality, it was a prism refracting the deep fractures in Mauritius’ justice system — a system where the severity of the law appears to shift with the names on the charge sheet.

Jagai, former head of the now-disbanded Special Striking Team, stands accused of orchestrating excess payments amounting to roughly Rs 86 million under the “Reward Money” scheme — a fund meant to incentivise police success but now under the glare of the Financial Crimes Commission (FCC). Bail was denied, with FCC officers warning of potential interference with witnesses and manipulation of evidence. He was remanded until 21 August and taken back for further questioning.

Contrast this with the fate of Assistant Commissioner of Police Dunraz Gangadin, arrested weeks earlier in connection with the same scandal. Gangadin, facing provisional money-laundering charges with about Rs 160 million allegedly channelled through his personal account, walked out of court on bail the same day. The conditions were strict, but the symbolism was telling: two senior officers, implicated in the same affair, treated under visibly different standards of pre-trial liberty.

The legal mechanism enabling these arrests — the provisional charge — is itself contentious. In Mauritius, a provisional charge allows police to arrest and bring an accused before court before the investigation is complete. The constitutional promise of liberty under Section 5, and the right to a fair hearing under Section 10, sit uneasily beside this tool. Unlike jurisdictions where charging typically requires a ready brief of evidence and strict timelines, Mauritius imposes no clear statutory limit on how long provisional charges can hang over an accused. In complex financial-crime matters, this can mean months or years in limbo — a purgatory of legal uncertainty. The Supreme Court itself, in Beekharry v The State (2011), warned against its abuse as a mere “holding charge.”

Such procedural latitude would be defensible if applied evenly. It is not. The list of senior political figures who have faced serious allegations but avoided sustained detention reads like a directory of state power. Former Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam was once the subject of a dramatic police raid in which millions of rupees were seized in cash; charges did not lead to a public trial. Former Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, convicted in the MedPoint case in 2015 and later acquitted on appeal, returned swiftly to office — and, in mid-February 2025, was arrested by the FCC on suspicion of money laundering, only to secure bail within hours. In each case, the wheels of justice turned, but never ground as they do now for Jagai.

The imbalance is not accidental. It is engineered through the architecture of political appointments. The current Commissioner of Police, Rampersad Sooroojebally, was appointed earlier this year. Dev Jokhoo, once arrested in the Roches Noires affair, now serves as Commissioner of Prisons after being called back from retirement. The Director-General of the FCC, Sanjay Dawoodarry, holds the post in acting capacity and, like his predecessors, owes his mandate to the Prime Minister’s advice to the President. The Attorney General, Gavin Glover, once served as counsel to Navin Ramgoolam. In a small jurisdiction with few hard checks on executive appointment powers, the result is a law-enforcement hierarchy bound, directly or indirectly, to political patrons.

This is the textbook definition of state capture: when the formal institutions of justice are absorbed into the informal machinery of political loyalty. Laws remain on the books; the Constitution still opens with its democratic flourish. But in practice, the independence of the FCC, the police, and even prosecutorial decision-making bends towards the gravitational pull of power.

The optics are corrosive. Internationally, Mauritius markets itself as a clean financial centre, aligned with FATF and ESAAMLG standards. Domestically, it tolerates a dual-track justice system: rigorous and unforgiving for some, navigable and forgiving for others. In the eyes of foreign regulators and investors, selective enforcement is not a parochial problem — it is a reputational risk with direct consequences for market confidence.

The Jagai affair, then, is more than a corruption case. It is a stress test for the rule of law in a post-colonial democracy still wrestling with the legacy of concentrated executive power. Without reform — tightening the evidentiary threshold for charges, insulating appointments from political control, and aligning detention practices with international human rights obligations — the same corridors of the Intermediate Court will see the same cycle of scandals, arrests, and quiet absolutions.

Until that day comes, Mauritius will remain a place where justice, like the “Reward Money” it now scrutinises, is distributed not by the impartial hand of the law, but by the invisible hand of political expediency. And in such a system, the verdict is delivered long before the trial begins.