Shantanu Panigrahi's Blog

Bundle document of ME010463-associated evidence submitted to Medway County Court

Bundle of documents requested by Medway County Court on 5 June 2014 on comments made by District Judge Green in Case Number ME010463 Dr Shantanu Panigrahi v The University of Greenwich

 
Struggle to survive as a Scientist at the University of Greenwich

I was born into a Hindu Brahmin family on the 15 of January 1957 and came to Britain as a 15 year-old boy accompanying my parents of whom my father, Dr Gopinath Panigrahi, was on Government of India deputation as the Indian Liaison Officer in Kew Gardens between 1973 and 1976. My family returned to India leaving me to continue with my education in Britain.

My father came from a very poor farming family but had done so very well in early schooling that he secured scholarships to study further with the result that he eventually came to Britain during 1952-1954 and completed his PhD in Botany from the University of Leeds. He published around 350 scientific papers and wrote a few books during his career, becoming an expert in Taxonomy and Plant Nomenclature. He was honoured by the Indian Government with the Janaki Ammol prize late into his retirement. I had a brother and two sisters, the elder sister being a University Lecturer with her husband being an economist, and the younger sister a school teacher. My brother suffered from mental illness and did not develop a career.

My schooling days in the UK were pleasant and full of sporting activities, having represented my school and college at Badminton almost throughout and being awarded Full Colours for services to Badminton at Chelsea College, University of London. I also played village cricket until my early forties. After graduating from the University of London in 1978 having studied Pharmacology, I took a Phd studentship at Hatfield Polytechnic but left it within a few months once the restrictions on my passport had been lifted by the Home Office as I was granted indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom. I did not wish to return to India to live with my family but wished independence. I joined the Tropical Products Institute in August 1979. I purchased a house while still single and obtained a naturalisation certificate in 1984 and a British Passport the same year. In 1985 I married the daughter of a Professor of Education in India through my father’s efforts and we were blessed with a daughter in 1990.

I developed a highly successful career as a research scientist and during that time I studied for a Phd from the University of Reading in 1988 and also completed 6 out of 7 Units of a MSc in Agricultural Development with distinction level marks. I published 39 scientific articles and visited some tropical countries in which project work was conducted. This research was revisionary in nature and exposed the fact that the earlier literature from western science was not only inadequate to serve the needs of developing countries, frequently incorrect recommendations were made on commodities such as cottonseed meal, palm kernel meal, sunflower meal, coconut meal and cassava, so that countries were losing out economically by following the guidance given.

The Institute changed names several times and the turning point came as it was selected under the governments next steps scheme for agency status as the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) before being privatised to the University of Greenwich. This was when a hitherto unblemished career suffered a blowout as staff were caught up in a dogfight to try and save their jobs. Jobs were only safe if one had sufficient funded projects to manage and conduct. I was a non-ruminant livestock nutritionist but since 1991 the emphasis of the Livestock Department’s work had shifted from a general livestock perspective to a ruminant focus and we were expected to train ourselves in this area. I took up this challenge readily but found the attitude of senior staff, in particular, Professor Margaret Gill (a Scottish lady), very disconcerting. I considered this to be the result of racial discrimination and jealousy. Over time I realised that I was being denied project funds with a view to my redundancy. I fought this by devising new projects but could only secure minor projects which were to guarantee a short term future. I continued with laboratory work much to the annoyance of Professor Maggie Gill for she could not stop me conducting research work while I still had a job whether or not I had a project. I decided to stretch out existing projects for as long as possible. In 1997, 40 staff were made redundant and I only escaped that round of cuts by having some important project completion work to do.

Things came to a head in November 1996 when the root crops in poultry diets project in Cameroon was coming to an end. The Livestock Production Programme Manager, Dr Richard Mathewman, had suddenly found some extra money from the Department of International Development to be spent that financial year and issued a call for new projects or project extensions. When I tried to get the root crops project extended I encountered considerable hostility. I had not been satisfied with the technical progress in the field and put forward a proposal to investigate a few poultry diet improvements. Instead of addressing the proposal that I had put forward the Programme Manager’s response was to ask me to fill in a Project Completion Summary Sheet to signify that the project had ended. I questioned him about it which led him to write to me saying that I was applying for funds under false pretences. The comment hurt me a great deal as it called into question my reputation and I asked him why he was asking me to complete a project completion form when his earlier email had made it perfectly clear that he was still considering a project extension to the root crops project. He denied that it was still under consideration. The important thing however was that the messages were being merely relayed to me by Dr Mathewman pretending to be acting for himself when the true situation was that Professor Gill was actually making the decisions. I did not get a project extension but exposed Professor Gill and Dr Mathewman to being deceivers, and brought the matter to the attention of the acting Director, Professor John Perfect. This incident was a major turning point as I had exposed racial discrimination in the allocation of research funds, which led senior management to gang up against me from that point onwards.

Subsequently I found that all my major project proposals including for the Department for International Development’s Flexibility Fund and Darwin Initiative were being blocked unreasonably and obstacles were being placed in my path to ensure that I did not succeed. At the same time I had a Budget Manager to satisfy and had to show that I was trying my best to secure project funds for the Department, for the Departments were run as separate entities each having to survive to exist. In the summer of 1997 the Department received calls for concept notes and I was encouraged to take part in the development of concept notes for submission. One person chosen as a Bid Coordinator was a Mr David Jackson with whom I shared an office. When my progress was hampered again I decided to complain and wrote a strongly worded memorandum to him, copied to my Head of Department, Dr Barry Blake and the then Director of the Institute Professor Willis. The purpose of the memorandum was to demonstrate that I was a valuable member of staff because of my superior technical understanding of the subject matter and so the right person for the task of submitting a concept note and taking part in the project but for the fact that I was being racially discriminated against and marginalised out of funds.

UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH
NATURAL RESOURCES INSTITUTE
MEMORANDUM
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE

From: Dr S. Panigrahi Date: 27 July 1997
To: Mr D. Jackson *: 01634 883545
(NRI Research Bid Coordinator for DFID’s Fax: 01634 883551/883888
NRSP SAPS Call for Research Proposals on eMail: shan. panigrahi@nri.org
Constraints to Natural Resources Productivity
in Semi-Arid Farming Systems of India)

cc
Dr B Blake
Professor D Wills

Mr Jackson

PREPARATION OF CONCEPT NOTES FOR THE NRSP SAPS CALL

1. I am most concerned at the ambivalent attitude you have displayed towards me thus far in relation to the development of Concept Note (CN) for the above Call. This is most vividly reflected in your not even bothering to respond to my emails on the subject. And when I have tried to remind you of some of my concerns verbally you have given me answers that I have felt were tantamount to being ‘fobbed-off’, as the expression goes. Do you not wish my KAWAD CN preparation efforts to succeed? You are aware that I have only a few days left in which to finalise the CN before going on leave, and I am under-commissioned in the next UoG financial year. I have heard that there are redundancies in the offing and those without much commissioned work will naturally be selected for this. I may only be junior member of staff but this job is important for me for the sake of my family. Please note that my wife only has a part-time job as an administrative officer, and we have a 7-year old daughter to bring up for which we need our combined incomes! As a parent yourself of a young adolescent daughter you should be well aware of how costly this is if you want your child to have a good education.

2. I am, therefore, asking you again for genuine help this time in my efforts to develop my CN. Please note that failure to respond positively to each of the following points may leave me with no alternative but to request Ian Grant to appoint a different Bid Coordinator for this Call – a person more mentally-predisposed to assisting other NRI staff than yourself! I must have the information requested in the following paragraphs in writing before noon on Monday 28th July 1997.

3. First, please give me copies of all your letters to potential overseas collaborators in India since 11 July 1997, including the Fax print-out slips that will confirm to me the times of any successful transmissions attempted through this medium. You said you were expecting a reply from them by close-of-play on the 24th of July so that you would then arrange a second CN Drafting Meeting (CDM) this week. Have there been any replies? Did you try to speak to anyone directly on the telephone and checked that relevant staff had not gone on holidays? As you know I am expecting to travel widely in India shortly and wish to call on these persons, especially at the University of Agricultural Sciences and CRIDA, to discuss my CN.

4. I referred to Dr Arora in my email of 23 July 1997 to Dr Thomas (copied to you), and again, his name came up at the CDM as a key person for implementation of the project in India. You are aware that in his letter of 1st October 1996 to Mr Wilson (at the British Aid Management Office, New Delhi) Mr Lewcock specified that all KAWAD-related research proposals must be discussed with Dr Arora. This has become even more important now that he is the ‘Commissioner’, as you rightly brought to our attention at the CDM. If you still have not written to him, what are your reasons for this? Please also ensure that I have his address and telephone and Fax numbers so that I can then communicate my views to him directly before I go to India, and then arrange to meet him during my stay there.

5. At the CDM we expressed grave concerns on paragraph 12 of the Call, as no one could not fathom out its significance in the context of KAWAD. Specifically, we deliberated on how it could be possible to develop research ideas on cropping patterns and livestock systems, or on common property resources, or on coping strategies, and perhaps least of all, on catchment management strategies that would achieve complementarity with KAWAD if we were to conduct research to validate and test technologies/approaches elsewhere (Zimbabwe was considered at the CDM for ‘elsewhere’ because of the contents of paragraph 10 of the Call) given that soils, climate, rainfall modality, length of the dry season(s) socio-economics, etc., are crucial variables for the sustainability of any project under SAPSs. You undertook to discuss paragraph 12 with Dr J Barrett (the Programme Manager in DfID) since Mr Lewcock, according to you, was on an overseas mission in India and could not be contacted by email. Have you contacted Dr Barrett as yet? If not, why not? Further, is it not worth telephoning the University of Agricultural Science at Hubli-Dharwad to locate him? You will recall that the trainee from Karnataka working with Ansen Ward said that all major State Universities were now on the Internet so they may well have installed email systems recently! Please keep me informed on these communications by copying your letters to me in future.

6. As you know there was a time delay of several days between the appearance in Room A121 of the two Call documents – the first one that you gave me on 17th July without any hand-written markings on it, and the second one on 22nd July with ‘DJ. Working Document’ marked at the top. Both documents were unaddressed, dated the 11 July 1997, neither was signed by Mr Lewcock, and you pointed out to me only on the morning of 23rd July 1997 that there had been no modifications made to the first document in the second one. Any sensible Bid Coordinator would be expected to issue these documents in the reverse order to which you did, do you not now agree? We also had a third document produced at the CDM by Derek Russell which none of the other Committee members were in possession of! This being the most official-looking of the three documents (it had a covering page and was signed by Mr Lewcock, for example) must have been the document that Ian Grant had seen/received on 14 July 1997, and to which he referred in his email of 21st July 1997 to HODs and Bid Coordinators (see NEWRES.XLS). Since Mr Lewcock was consulting you in detail at least since the 4th July 1997 on the drafting of this Call, I would expect him to have had sought your opinion on the final version before he released it on the 14 July 1997 to other Institute staff through the official, lets call it the ‘Derek Russell’ Call. It seems that he did not inform you that he had now agreed to issue the Call prior to his departure, and further, that no-one bothered to give you a copy of the ‘Derek Russell’ Call. Or else, as an NRMD colleague you would surely have immediately asked me to discard the first two Call documents in favour of this document since you know that by the 22nd of July I was spending all of my time studying Dr Barrett’s detailed KAWAD project memorandum, your complicated but thorough and interesting 15-24 July 1996 project identification mission visit report, and the Kalyanakere-Mavathurukere Watershed Development Programme Final Technical Report. In addition, I was studying maps of Karnataka for road/railway networks and the proximity of Bijapur, Bellary and Chitradurga to the major urban markets of India, discussing the project site with the trainee from Karnataka, and then discussing several project ideas with you. You did not receive the ‘Derek Russell’ Call right up until half-an-hour before the meeting (please confirm) when it had been apparently seen/received by Ian Grant on the 14th of July and, perhaps, also by Dr Blake sometime about this date. If you did not receive it should you not have insisted on it as the NRI Bid Coordinator, given that you had been assigned the responsibility to circulate it to all staff with an interest in submitting CNs? It seems that Ian Grant appointed you Bid Coordinator on the 21st without ensuring that would have the ‘Derek Russell’ Call. You also arranged the 23rd July meeting giving Dr Thomas no time to study the requirements of the Call. You appeared to know that the Call had become official only some time after 12.26 pm on that date because on your return to the office you then started deleting the markings ‘DJ. Working Document’ when photocopying the document for the benefits of the Committee members. If you did receive the ‘Derek Russell’ Call even at that stage you would have let us have copies of this one instead, because as far as you were concerned the contents could well have been changed at NR-International without reference to you (that company is perfectly entitled to do this if it chooses!). If the ‘Derek Russell’ Call only became generally available around 1.00 pm of the 23rd July, and you were aware of this, as Bid Coordinator I would then have expected you to postpone the CDM at 2.30 pm to give the Committee members time to consider the document first. Do you not agree that this is what you should have done with hindsight?

7. If the ‘Derek Russell’ Call is indeed the definitive official Call, do you know why the title still reads as follows:
‘ODA NRSP Semi-Arid Production Systems Research
Proposed Call for Submission of Concept Notes’?

8. A good Bid Coordinator should try to follow the example of Nigel Hunter who on receiving the same notice from Ian Grant as you, studied the Call right up until the 25th of July and then sent a general notice throughout the Institute soliciting the registration of interests in his Call, giving until the 31st of July 1997 as the deadline (see his email). Excellent approach! On the other hand, no one at NRI with whom I have spoken was aware of your intentions, and even Dr D. Thomas next door thought that we were going to discuss the NRSP SAPS Zimbabwe Call until I informed him otherwise by copying to him the papers you gave me at around 12.00 on the 23rd of July! (you should be aware that Dr Thomas has been strongly recommended for the new Departmental post of ‘Research Manager’ and it is very disrespectful to treat him in this manner on such a vital research issue).

9. You informed me on the 22nd that only Czech Conroy, Dr Thomas, you and I will be present at the CDM. You appeared not to know at least up until 1.00 pm on the 23rd July that Rod Bowen, Richard Mathewman and Derek Russell would also be present. As you know Rod’s contribution to the technical discussions were minimal – this observation implies no disrespect to him, he is a Forestry specialist and we were discussing semi-arid agricultural systems with a focus on water conservation! Derek Russell was due to attend an important Departmental meeting at 2.00 pm that day and appeared to be suddenly diverted away that morning for your CDM. And why was Richard Mathewman present when there were already two strong NRMD livestock specialists in the Committee. You should take note that as far as I am aware Richard is still partly retained by NRInternational as a member of their staff, for Programme Advisory/Management purposes (please check with Dr Blake). If so, was his presence at the meeting as a member of CN Drafting Committee appropriate? Again he made next to no contribution to the discussions, and from what I could see, he did not even have a copy of the ‘Derek Russell’ Call or your first two Call documents (?). If you did not ask these three people to attend the CDM who did, and for what purpose?

10. As NRInstitute is now in the private sector, us scientists from the old civil service system have, unfortunately, got to get used to an additional burden – legal affairs! If we do not, one of us will soon make a mistake in our dealings with outsiders that could plunge NRI-UoG into contractual obligations that they could not possibly meet so that matters might have to eventually be resolved in a court of law. We are in very dangerous territory with research because there is so much uncertainty in this sphere, for example, a minimum 70 per cent of the work that we are responsible for contractually is outside our control as Project Managers (the overseas elements). You need to constantly bear in mind that NR-International is a profit-making (of sorts) private company responsible to its shareholders (of sorts), and that the RNRRS Research Calls go out for competitive tender! Whilst I am no expert on legal matters, it seems logical to assume that it it could be illegal for that that company (and for us if we appear to collude) to seemingly give this Institute an unfair advantage over its competitors by for example, using us to draft the Call (we could tailor it to our strengths – I know you have been working on the precise wordings of Mr Lewcock’s Call since at least 4th of July), assisting us in the drafting of the CN (if Richard Mathewman is indeed still partly retained by NR-International!), and by letting us have prior notice of the details of a Call (as you and I were). If you are inexperienced about these matters, you should consult the Directors Office about legal affairs.

11. Lack of any amendments to the first Call document or to the ‘DJ. Working Document’ Call document in the final official ‘Derek Russell’ Call version is a pity because the CN Drafting Committee agreed that this was a rather carelessly-prepared document containing confusing Purposes and Outputs, and above all, was anticipating research complementarity to a Developmental project that had not even started and which would take several years after a suitable project start-up period, to become operational to the extent that the associated natural systems could be understood (KAWAD is expected to be 15 year project with funds currently confimed only for the first 5.5 year Phase). The correct approach would, therefore, be for 2-3 years of watershed design/engineering to be completed before considering a RNRRS NRSP complementary research. In my view, it would certainly be a waste of time, money and manpower effort to conduct technical research, at least until some new watershed sites had become established. We are in the realms of speculation to specify project outputs and milestones under circumstances of such high uncertainty (if you are unsure about the difference between ‘risk and uncertainty’ please check with me). Some research could perhaps be organised in Year 2 of KAWAD’s operation if priority is given in KAWAD to starting its implementation in Bellary because of its higher rainfall so that it would be easier to replicate known technical interventions here. However, I have not seen the Technical Annexe for KAWAD (it is not in Dr Barretts document that you gave me to study) and so cannot comment further on this aspect.

12. Thus, all matters and factors considered, I would suggest that at present the useful NRSP strategy-congruent research work be limited to detailed project identification, for which we should seek Programme Developmental funds instead of Research funds. This will, however, not be an ordinary project identification mission but itself would require ‘projectisation’ over a 2 year period. There is a mountain of literature from previous World Bank-funded research to be digested by UK staff, and this should be followed by a series of KAWAD-progress monitoring visits that will end up with a SAPS CN research proposal/memorandum with the assistance of local collaborators and NGOs. It follows from this that, in my assessment, the Call as set out is 2 years premature. Accordingly, I would also very strongly recommend that Mr Lewcock be advised immediately to withdraw the Call before it wastes more valuable time, firstly, of experts in the UK and overseas who would unncessarily start preparing CNs for it (technical expertise is getting to be in very short supply these days as research funds dry up throughout the world) and secondly, of those who will have to appraise the CNs (please realise each of the external reviewer and the members of the PAC would have to study the documents that you and I have in our possession (see paragraph 6) before they can make recommendations on which are the sensible research proposals for DfID to pursue in relation to KAWAD-complementarity. Please also spare a thought for administrators at DfID who may now be inundated with tens or even hundreds of CNs arriving at the Systems Management Office.

13. I should make some further views known on research project identification in case you accept my recommendations in paragraph 11. The composition of the UK visiting teams to monitor KAWAD progress at different times over the 2 years is going to be vitally important to consider for getting the eventual CN right. In this regard you will recall that at the CDM concern was expressed that £25,000 per visit will not be sufficient for this. A two-person team of an agronomist and socio-economist will not be adequate to carry out the task, as Mr Lewcock seems to think. You have pointed out (paragraphs 21-28 of your visit report) that a multi-disciplinary approach is essential and, in particular, that ICRISAT scientists are in dire need of advice from a respected Hydrologist (to be added as the third team member in addition to an agronomist and a socio-economist). NRI does not currently have a hydrologist. Whilst we must rectify this deficiency, for our immediate needs I would suggest you contact the Institute of Hydrology in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. You are also aware that Mr Wilson in his reply (copied to Dr J Barrett) to the above-referred letter from Mr Lewcock insisted: ‘Among this work, soil fertility and fodder production are central’. The fourth member of the team must, therefore, be a livestock feed and manure specialist. I believe I was recruited into the CN Drafting Committee to fulfil this role (please see my email of 24 July 1997 to Claire Troy copied to Dr Blake and yourself). Although we need to be sensitive in how we communicate our true feelings to Mr Lewcock, DfID must aware that Mr Lewcock is not a technical specialist but a Manager so that he cannot be expected to appreciate issues concerning environmental sustainability. That is what we at NRInstitute are here for. And we need to provide advice that is consistent with the simultaneous objective of maintaining the reputation of NRInstitute-UoG as a World Centre of Excellence in Tropical Agriculture. Please, therefore, consider these matters carefully and inform Mr Lewcock, and if necessary, Dr J Barrett. When all these deliberations are complete please convey any important messages to me at my India address that I gave you (my telephone number there is 009133 534 5868, in case you need to contact me).

14. On a minor matter, I should also be grateful if you would please advise Ian Grant of the following (on my behalf but I think many others at NRI also hold the same views), so that he may then consider making appropriate representations. The months of July and August, being the height of the holiday season, is a bad time for DfID Programme Managers to issue Calls for concept notes. As you will realise from the above technical deliberations, the drafting of research proposals for implementation overseas is a very complicated affair, requiring studies of the state of economic development of a country and the geographic/climatic/socio-economic attributes of the regions selected for project implementation. But perhaps most significant, staff need to adopt considerable diplomacy when dealing with overseas people to try and secure the establishment of sound collaborative arrangements, especially in India and Kenya in my experience. These countries have inherited bureaucracies that will grind any scientist down so that we need to be very patient! Further, we must also remember that we are now part of the UoG, and as such, each one of us has a responsibility for conducting ourselves with overseas collaborators in a courteous and generous manner when trying to surmount language and cultural barriers. Only then will the institutions be inclined to send their young students and scientists to us for under-graduate and post-graduate courses and PhD studentships. Thus, seven weeks to getting a CN prepared from the date that a Call is issued (which will be only 5-6 weeks for the relevant staff by the time they receive the document!) is woefully inadequate to make collaborative arrangements with overseas collaborators by telephone and fax communications that we have to rely on. I would suggest 3 months as being more reasonable for the submission of a CN and 4 months for project memorandum.

15. Finally, may I remind you that I must have a response in writing to each of the above points in clear unambiguous terms waiting for me on Monday when I arrive at work. As I mentioned to you when you were about to leave for home on Friday, I am having to look after our daughter in the mornings of this week. This leave has been somewhat enforced on me – unfortunately, much as we pleaded, the NRI/UoG PlayScheme organisers could not persuade UoG to release the required rooms for the children to be looked after during the first week of the school holidays. However, I will still try and complete as much of the CN work as possible with your cooperation.

Dr S. Panigrahi
Natural Resources Management Department

The memorandum was a severe criticism of the University’s work that I was engaged in and in particular on how I was treated. Mr Jackson submitted three documents in defence but I did not respond to these and I went on a family holiday to India. On my return a month later the Deputy Head of Department wrote a memorandum to me which led to informal disciplinary proceedings being initiated against me. A meeting was held and I was reprimanded, the issues specifically relating to my alleged discourteous behaviour towards Mr David Jackson and Mr Andy Major, both of Natural Resources Management Department. Strangely the charges against me were to do with calling a junior administrative staff, Mr Major, incompetent which I denied. In my defence I stated that Mr Jackson had been blocking my progress out of jealousy. Dr Blake in his memorandum of 13 November 1997 acknowledged that ‘Dr Panigrahi had one very serious concern related to the Jackson concept note issue but with far wider implications. Dr Panigrahi stated that he had raised a range of other proposals over time for eg for PhD studentships and ASSC funding which he felt should have been put forward and funded. He had often not received a response to explain why his ideas had not been taken up and was of the clear opinion that there was a process in place which was actively and specifically blocking funding proposals that he produced. The Institute and Departmental procedures for concept note production had changed and still seemed to be changing when it suited those responsible. Dr Panigrahi had no understanding of why such a widespread blocking of his proposals should be imposed by a range of colleagues, but he was convinced that this situation exists.’ I was asked if I thought that there was a conspiracy against me. I said ‘No’ knowing that to say otherwise would be tactically wrong as it would give them the reason to send me for medical attention for psychological problems. Dr Blake summarised the proceedings that it ‘…will require the following from Dr Panigrahi:

• acceptance that his suspicions of colleagues in the context of their attitudes towards his development of proposals are unfounded
• acceptance that his behaviour with respect to Mr Jackson and Mr Major was discourteous and inappropriate
• acceptance that his communication with American Express was entirely inappropriate and circumvented normal line management procedures
• an undertaking that he will in future adhere to normal Institute and departmental management routes, procedures and standards of courtesy in all matters and will route correspondence through line management as appropriate
• where problems arise he will discuss these with his Line Manager, Deputy Head of Department or Head of Department according to availability, before acting
• acceptance that having agreed these terms, subsequent failure to uphold the undertakings may lead to immediate formal disciplinary action

Further action will await Dr Panigrahi’s response to this document’.

I gave the undertaking required with extenuating circumstances for my conduct to be considered. Soon after Dr Blake said to me one afternoon, ‘The most important thing is to sort you out’ with a double meaning, as I was undergoing medical treatment for suspected tuberculosis, which fortunately subsequent tests showed to be incorrect.

The informal disciplinary hearing was held on the afternoon of 12 October 1997 and I had come into the office very early in the morning to send an email in preparation for the hearing. As I drove out and while still within the University premises, a car suddenly turned on me and damaged my car’s right flank and caused a tyre puncture. The driver was a lady, a junior member of staff from the Director’s Office. I was certain in my mind that I was not to blame for the ‘accident’ and that the lady had deliberately driven into my car. I tried to probe her further by email but she refused to engage in the discussion, which added to my suspicion that the incident had been an attack on me in order to send me a message that I should leave the Institute. My Insurance company, Direct Line Limited appointed Moore Blatch solicitors to take the case to court – on what arguments I do not know.

I struggled on through the winter of 1997 to keep up with my work. At one point in relation to a few days break that became available I found myself writing to the new Director of the Institute Mr John Perfect an email with the saying, ‘Thank God for small mercies’. Such was the compulsion to write these words I wondered if the message was coming from a different world. I went to Zimbabwe in February 1998 to work on my oilseeds in livestock diet project. The visit was marred by the Intermediate Technology Development Group undermining my work on the field and my efforts were being ruined by colleagues in Zimbabwe and others at the Natural Resources Institute and the Appropriate Technology International of the United States. However, I ignored these problems in order to focus my mind on the purpose of the visit which was to develop a project proposal for securing future project funds.

Throughout this period I was being harassed non-stop by colleagues with such actions as would show me to be incompetent. Dr Chris Wood on his return from a trip to India presented me with a copy of the Indian news journal ‘India Today’ which I took as a message that I should pack up my bags and go back to India immediately. The United Nations placed an advertisement in the Economist for the post of Director of Sustainable Development clearly targeted at me. I applied but no response was received concerning the vacancy. The United Nations had been manipulated.

I had virtually no projects by then and I had known for some time that the writing was on the wall for me. Yet, to annoy management I prepared two papers for submission, first one to the Spring Meeting of the World Poultry Science Association-UK Branch (WPSA-UK) in Scarborough in March 1998, and the second to the 10th European Poultry Conference to be held in Israel in 21-28 June 1998. Furthermore I secured a Travel Grant from the British Poultry Science Limited to attend the Spring Meeting of WPSA-UK which was being held jointly with the British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) Meeting for a combined fee of £190. At the Meeting I paid this amount by cheque. While in Scarborough I received an invitation from Dr Jim McNab to participate at the World Poultry Science Association Symposium to be held in a year’s time. I packaged that invitation as a small project proposal and put it forward for funding from the new Livestock Production Programme Manager, Dr Wyn Richards. I was almost certainly going to be successful with this application but the harassment was continuing unabated as the BSAS siphoned out a further £190 from my Bank Account without authorisation. The University had for long been monitoring my telephone calls and I had given out my Barclays Connect Card number for the first time to a lady in Jerusalem where I was proposing to stay during my participation at the European Poultry Conference. I could only conclude that the VISA number was then passed on to Joyce Darling of the BSAS for her to harass me under the false pretences of mistakenly charging me a second time. That is when I became convinced that Scottish colleagues had decided to persecute me out of their national loyalty to Professor Gill at Natural Resource International. What does one do? Lie down and take all the harassment? I chose to respond in kind for I had had enough of racial prejudice, and further had realised that I had learnt about as much as I could out of my association with the Natural Resources Institute. The laboratories were being closed down and the scope for research had diminished considerably in recent years. The most important thing was to retain a good name, the reasoning being that I could then become a free-lance scientist if I did lose my job. I wrote in an email that the University of Greenwich was a polytechnic that thought it was a university, having been so classified (along with numerous other polytechnics of the UK) by the previous Conservative Government.

In one email to the Livestock Production Programme manager I found myself writing at a certain point: this saga was engineered for al’s intents and purposes, with the term ‘al’ apparently representing the Almighty. This was an early clue that I was to experience a religious phenomenon. On numerous occasions I felt that during my emails I was communicating with a higher power rather than the person to whom the email or letter was addressed. When I was harassed with the ‘false pretences’ jibe I wrote to the Director after sorting out the matter that I did not need to do anything further to protect my reputation within Natural Resources Institute or outside: the word outside meant in the spiritual world and before God.

The project proposal development with Intermediate Technology Development Group (UK) was going well but before anything could be happen on this a letter arrived from the Personnel Manager on 1 April 1998 outlining an allegation of misconduct by me. I was so angry by then that I decided to fire off a sarcastic letter of protest to the BSAS, written as if in Scottish accent, and gave it on 20 April 1998 to Professor Gill as its President. She was also the Head of Natural Resource International with its offices in Chatham Maritime. I wanted the letter to hurt.

To From
BSAS Dr S. Panigrahi
British Society of Animal Science 3, Hoath Lane
P.O. Box 3 Wigmore
PENICUIK Near Gillingham
MIDLOTHIAN EH26 ORZ KENT ME8 OSL
UK UK
Tel.: 9131 4454508 Offical Email: shan.panigrahi@nri.org
Fax.: 0131 535 3120
Email:BSAS@ed.sac.uk
Fax 0131 445 4508

20 April 1998

Dearie me Joyce Darling@BSAS Central Operations (- Relocation?)

CONFERENCE FEE:REF: 8044273: BR SOC ANML PROD PENICUIK

1. Hello! Are you still there Joyce dearie? Is there anyone’n? What’s go’n on, ma’ dearie?

2. Got ye green ‘Cardholder Copy’ o’ Sales Voucher Slip for Bank of Scotland, Merchant Services, wi’ ma’ Barclays Bank Visa Card No. and wi’ the follow’n entries:

CARDHOLDER’S SIGNATURE: Mail Order
AUTHORISATION CODE: 92445
DESCRIPTION: Conference fee (this looked like yer handwrit’n, Joyce dearie?)
AMOUNT: 190 pounds
DATE: 09-04-98. Incid., postmark on envelope, ‘twas 8.04.98?? Joyce dearie, yer did the same thing a’ Scarboro’. I gave yer the cheque on 23rd March and the date on your receipt was 25 March – suggest ye check Barclays Cheque No 90098086, 100665?
DEPT.: Blank space (??)
SALES NO: Blank space (??)
INITIALS: Blank space (??).

3. Saw entry in ma’ Bank printout on Friday: BCC 190.00 DR 16APR. Incid. ‘ope yer no relation to Alistair, or we’v all ‘ad it! Good on yer for BSAS though, Joyce dearie? Are yer’n charge of the new fundrais’n strategy! Did’yer tell Dr Black all abou’ i’? Did he like i’ and say ‘well done’ and ‘good on yer Joyce dearie’, or did he shou’: stramash, Joyce (as yer great soccer manager Alex Ferguson might’v put i’!). Incid. did yer pass on t’ WPSA-UK their bit o’ booty?

4. No worries, though Joyce dearie, as that other mastermind Alan Border might’v put it (incid. d’yer know anything about cricket up there by any chance – in case not I am send’n here some of the rules in plain English; see PPS). Easy come, easy go, as I always maintain. Can yer take any more o’this? Say when, and I’ll stop dish’n. i’ out!

5. Thank ye though for ye BSAS compliment slip. What did I do to deserve this? Was’t ma’ ‘knock-out’ poster, by any chance? Incid., who’s idea was’t – no signature/initials or date on’t!).

6. Good Meet’n though Joyce dearie, but a wee bi’ gloomy and wet, is Scarboro’ – even the nice landlady in guest house did no’ make up for this. And that zig-zag from the main road down t’ the Spa Complex – glad there was no frost, or even moss, I tell yer – or else delegates would be hav’n to go down wi’ ‘their skates on’! And in case yer wonder’n about Blackpool for the next’un, forget it – tha’s no good either, go’n by reports! They tell me it gets tha’ way when one’s had ‘t too good for too long, Joyce dearie. Suggest somewhere ‘down here in this direction’ for a change. Wha’ abou’ Brighton? Nice place, and a wee bi’ warmer for delegates! Could also do wi’ a wee bi’ of boost, yer know, wi’ all the trouble with the football ground! Look wha’ happened to Glasgow in jus’ a few years! – it’s a great place now, be’r than E’inburgh, I think. Promise to think abou’ t’?

7. Enjoyed the Meet’n, though bi’ rush-rush on 23rd March mornin’ – due to be’n a low budget visit, yer see! Jus’ managed to get on the ‘Flying Scotsman’ at Kings Cross about 10.30. Incid. caught the headlines in ‘The Scotsman’: ‘Tensions shows as Scotland receives a mauling in Calcutta Cup’! Sign of times, I wonder’d! Took a taxi from the station, checked-in at the Adene H’tel and ran down the the zig-zag t’ the Complex. Phew! Did yer know, I just got into the Spa Theatre in time to catch the last sentence of President’s welcomin’ address: ‘BSAS has a reputation of being a friendly society, and I hope it will remain that way’. Hear Hear(!!), I thought. Incid., now wonderin’ whether for the next’un the President could add the words ‘and wealthy’ between ‘friendly’ and ‘Society’ – with yer new fundrais’n strategy! Who knows though – there’s many a slip t’wixt cup and lip, as ma’ good Dad says – but also ‘say nought the struggle not availeth’ – no, not yer Robert Burns; Arthur Clough (incid. is he any relati’n to tha’ other great soccer mastermind Brian, who never got his chance for the big job, I wonder!).

8. Incid. wish yer good luck with yer fundrais’n – we need’t! Perhaps, for the next’un yer could offer the delegates some decent food, ‘nstead of them sarnies and fa’ chips – and no dessert, dearie me Joyce! I thought yer knew that I’m a bit partial t’ samosas and chicken nuggets! And yer do have all tha’ haggis and black puddin’ – no need to be abandon yer own food (and yer accent!) because of misinformation and need for fundrais’n, Joyce dearie – I know good few Englishmen who love the stuff. And good haggis is made from sheep, not beef, as I understand’t – so no need for the delegates to fear mad cow disease; or even scrapies now that yer have tha’ ‘Dolly’. If I was to be perfectly ‘onest wi’ yer, I’m more than a wee bi’ concerned abou’ the recent spread of ‘headless chicken syndrome’ though up there, start’n from Aberdeen through E’inburgh down as far as Nottingham and Lincolnshire, would yer believe – did yer hear anythin’ abou’ that in Penicuik, by any chance? No, Joyce dearie, I mean’t – good luck wi’ yer fundrais’n. Perhaps yer can then also offer us give us ‘cakes with tea’ ‘nstead o’ them stale old ‘cookies’ yer got up there now tha’ crumble in yer mouth at first bite, and spread debris all round – usually in other people’s homes! Incid. yer do still have those lovely short crust and short bread biscuits that’s world famous! Oh, canno’ afford it, I know!

9. Incid. not much cricket play’n up there in Scotland, ’s there? At least, not the Test Match kind needin’ ‘stayin’ power’. It looks like yer prefer the limited overs ‘hit ’n miss’ type or the under-ar’m stuff; Or is it the the kid stuff with tennis balls that yer play up there; if yer continue t’ practice wi’ these balls, I can tell yer, yer got no chance in the World cup, where yer batsmen have t’ face Commonwealth grenades!

10. Anyway, Joyce dearie. Thank ye for the Conference – see ye in the next’n, now that yer got yer money – unless yer baa’ery is as fla’ as a pancake by then and yer move’t to Penipinch. Incid., wha’ does Penicuik mean, is it by any chance: ‘if yer see a penny quick pick it up before someone else does?’

11 All tha’ remains is for me to wish ye Namaskar, with our own say’n Satyemev Jayate. As Christmas may be comin’ early this year Merry Christmas to ye (all).

Shantanu Panigrahi
UK, originally from Kalinga (Orissa), a place near Calcutta, India

PS. Joyce, dearie. In case ye’re wonderin’, ‘incid.’ is short for ‘incidentally’ – I know how yer love to cut things down to the size to suit yer needs up there; now perhaps yer know how tha’ feels. Incid. I also just got fed-up wi’ it in the end – referr’n to things ‘obliquely’. I learnt tha’ this strategy does the job without spread’n much debris, but takes an awful long time! Who has time these days, Joyce dearie – yer tell me now?

PPS. Oh I almost forgot:
CRICKET AS EXPLAINED TO A FOREIGN VISITOR (OUTSIDER)

You have two sides one out in the field and one in. Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When both sides have been in and out, including the not outs – that’s the end of the game.

Incid., of course, ‘these days’ women also try and play this game, as yer might ‘ve noticed. HOWZAT!

On 24 April 1998 I received a second letter from the Personnel Department suspending me from work pending disciplinary proceedings. I felt a sense of relief for the day to day mental struggle in coping with the harassment would now be over. The University still had to go through a formal Disciplinary Hearing and an Appeal Hearing before it could dismiss me. I decided to fight the Hearings to protect my reputation but first took home all my box files containing scientific work before the suspension could be fully implemented. I wrote to the Vice Chancellor Professor Fussey stating that Mr Turner’s documents of 1st and 24th April 1998 had been both incomplete and premature: of particular concern to me is how alleged misconduct so minor that it was deemed not grave enough to warrant Disciplinary Action (see Mr Turner’s letter of 1st April 1998) suddenly became gross misconduct in his second letter of 24th April 1998. Formal disciplinary charges were concocted and my letter to BSAS was the single most important issue that was the subject of these proceedings. The suspension was also carried out with a blatant disregard for the University’s procedures.

I asked my doctor to refer me to a psychiatrist to diagnose my mental condition with a view to going on sick leave from the University. This was also done to obtain medical cover as an excuse for any misconduct that I might be accused of and also to have on record that I needed to see a psychiatrist because of depression caused by workplace harassment. I was diagnosed as suffering from severe depression with psychotic features and prescribed with Laustral and Risperidone tablets. I kept appointments with Dr Rao at the BUPA Hospital in Walderslade and submitted a sick note to the University in July 1998. I had also sought out a High Street solicitor, Mr Nicholas Sorrell of Sorrell and Co Solicitors, 5 High Street, Gillingham, Kent, to whom I paid a total of £1750 during the coming few months. I handed a letter to Mr Sorrell at our second meeting, requesting that he type it out and send it to the University of Greenwich from his Firm, as follows:

TERMS OF DR PANIGRAHI’S SUSPENSION FROM WORK PENDING DISCIPLINARY HEARING: DAMAGES

I write with reference to your letter of 28 April 1998 to my client Dr S. Panigrahi (of 3 Hoath Lane, Wigmore, Nr. Gillingham, KENT ME8 0SL) in reply to concerns raised in his letter earlier that morning. Your decision to deny my client access to his research materials and to prevent him from acting on points 2a-g of his letter has proved extremely damaging to Dr Panigrahi’s career and reputation as a scientist.

You should have been aware that Dr Panigrahi is a scientist of international standing and in his area of expertise is acknowledged as an automatic choice for an invited speaker in conferences and symposia. He has proven credibility for securing for scientists Fellowships from such organisations as the Carnegie Corporation and World Bank and continues to receive requests from scientists to act on their behalf for these in order that they are successful. Dr Panigrahi frequently receives requests from international scientists to engage in collaborative research in view of his successful publications that show an established track record of high quality research. Dr Panigrahi has received personal commendations on the quality of his research work from Dr J.T. Banser, Director of the Institute of Animal and Veterinary Research, Cameroon, and from Dr B. Panda of the ‘International Poultry Hall of Fame’, amongst others. Dr Panigrahi has published approximately 40 scientific papers in international journals and has unpublished data to write another 30 such articles. In 1994, Dr Panigrahi was invited to join the Editorial Board of the journal British Poultry Science, and was subsequently elected as a Director of the company British Poultry Science Ltd. In the past few years Dr Panigrahi has been interviewed for the posts of Livestock Production and Environment Research Programme Managers for the Department of International Development (DfID), Government of the United Kingdom. In 1996, he was ‘head-hunted’ to apply for the position of Professor and Chair of Nutrition, Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling (an opportunity he turned down). More recently, he was interviewed for one of the senior-most positions in his field in the UK, namely, Head of Livestock Science and Biotechnology Unit at the Chief Scientists Group. At present, his application for the vacancy of ‘Director, Sustainable Development Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ is being considered by the United Nations in New York.

My client has worked extremely hard for over a decade to prepare the research material to which he is currently denied access for his ‘oral’ presentation at the 10th European Poultry Conference in Israel in June 1998. This would have been a distinctive feather in his cap in terms of international recognition for his work and it had clearly been agreed as part of his personal plans. The same applies to the personal invitation he received at his home address to speak at the 26th Poultry Symposium to be held in Peebles. Dr Panigrahi’s scientific paper on ‘mycoflora in stovers stored in Zimbabwe’ has been highly commended by referees during first stage assessment as it breaks new grounds in scientific approach and methodology and is the result of 6 years of painstaking research – the publication of the paper was therefore urgent. Similarly, Dr. Panigrahi’s dissertation on ‘urbanisation and livestock development’ (which has also been highly commended) is the last item of study material required to secure his MSc with Distinction from the University of London. Dr Panigrahi was also required to write a personal reference (in sealed envelope) for a colleague in ITDG-Zimbabwe to read for a course of study in Britain, which he has been prevented from doing, thus harming his personal reputation and the career of a close colleague. Dr Panigrahi was also in the process of editing a dozen or so scientific papers from international scientists for the journal British Poultry Science, a work that has now been suspended. He was also due to attend the Annual General Meeting as a Director of the Company British Poultry Science Limited.

The items of work listed in para 2(a-g) in Dr Panigrahi’s letter to Professor Fussey and elaborated in paragraph 3 of this letter cannot under any circumstances be considered ‘disruption in the workplace’. Rather it can only enhance the reputation of the University of Greenwich. This has led my client to the conclusion that your denial of Dr Panigrahi’s fundamental right to further his scientific work may be a deliberate malicious attack on his career development and reputation consistent with Dr D. Cooter’s activities with respect to the ‘Indonesian Concept Notes’, the ‘July Calls for Concept Notes’ incident, the denial of funds for WPSA presentation, and by Dr R. Matthewman’s libelous remarks of ‘false pretences’ made to my client over a year ago but which the University has not investigated despite requests from my client. On the other hand, this suspension appears to have been engineered to enable the completion of plagiarism of my client’s research ideas on ‘Oilseed cake as stockfeeds in Zimbabwe (Project ZX0021) in similar manner to the ways in which his original proposals on the ‘effect of storage of stovers in Zimbabwe’ was plagiarised by other staff within Dr Blake’s Natural Resource Management Department, and the full raw data from dairy and poultry feeding trials designed by Dr Panigrahi under Project O0053 was systematically withheld from him by Professor Haines’ Food Security Department. These two Heads of Department appear to have deliberately prevented my clients April 1997 Oilseed proposal and his A0493 research work with Dr P. Golob from progressing. This suspension from work is timed to cover up these allegations of gross misconduct against other staff. The timing of the suspension also raises a question over whether it was not a deliberate attempt to (a) destroy my clients recently negotiated contract, after nearly one year and a half of effort, with the Livestock Production Programme for DfID, and (b) prevent him presenting his 6 years of research and development experience on sunflowerseed oilcake (C0633, O0053, ZX0021) at the forthcoming Wye Livestock Meeting on 21 May 1998. Preventing my client attending this Meeting is a considerable attack on his reputation. This is consistent with the apparently ‘staged’ car accident being currently investigated by my client’s other solicitors, Moore Blatch. The proposed ‘disciplinary action/hearing’ (see Appendix A) is seen by my client as an attempt to cover-up all these injustices perpetrated against him by a conspiracy of racial discrimination at the highest levels. A court injunction will therefore be applied for now to stop the proposed ‘disciplinary hearing’ until my client is given free access to all the relevant documents and the witnesses he needs to interview to support his case.

In conclusion, my client’s promising career at a young age has been ruined and his international reputation as an agricultural scientist permanently damaged by his suspension from work under the highly dubious circumstances of corrupt practices in the University, but principally by the specific terms you imposed with reference to points 2a-g of my client’s letter of 28 April 1998. Accordingly, I am instructed by Dr Panigrahi to take immediate steps to secure substantial financial compensation from the University of Greenwich for the damages suffered by him as a consequence.

This letter gives notice that unless a positive response is received within days, court proceedings to sue for damages could proceed from 10 May 1998 without further notice to you.

Yours sincerely

(To be signed by Mr Sorrell)

I submitted to the University for approval a second handwritten letter addressed to Ms Joyce Darling in case it had been decided that my first letter to BSAS was an official matter of misconduct and not a personal matter over which the University had no jurisdiction. No reply was received to the substantive issue of how the BSAS got hold of my Barclays’s Connect VISA number to effect the cash withdrawal. At this point, through my solicitor the University offered, without prejudice, to pay me £20,000 and to give me a reference letter. I rejected this offer asking the University instead to restore me to my job. No response was received and it was clear that Mr Sorrell too had been manipulated by my employers.

I had informed the University that as I was undergoing treatment for a mental health condition through my GP the disciplinary Hearing should be postponed or adjourned. The University was aware of the diagnosis made of my condition by a consultant psychiatrist so that it should instead have gone through the procedures for me to be placed on medical retirement under which I would have been paid about £10,000 per year. My Union, the Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists was negotiating on my behalf on this but negotiations broke down because the University decided that whilst it required further medical evidence it was not prepared to wait for this to be made available by the psychiatrist in due course.

In another letter to the University I felt compelled to start the letter with the words: ‘In this continuing quest to satisfy the need to know (to unlock the secret codes of the universe so to speak)…’ . I reflected on it a great deal and judged it to be another clue that what I was truly engaged in on a day to day basis was a search for the truth about existence.

A hearing had been conducted on 14 July 1998 which I did not attend fearing that a kangaroo court was being set up and also because quite by accident it fell on the day of my appointment with the psychiatrist. I sent Faxes and letters by recorded delivery to the University complaining of shameless persecution and querying the proceedings on points of order, and during the Hearing itself sent a Fax asking for the Hearing to be adjourned on the grounds that my health condition had deteriorated with more severe ‘anal’ trouble and that I was unable to attend the Hearing at this time for what would inevitably be a long ‘sitting’ today. I meant by these words that I was resisting the persecution and hitting back with comments that I was shitting on the justice system in operation and that there would be a long shitting session in progress that day to examine my case. Apart from the BSAS letter the charges were all flimsy but I was found blameworthy of gross misconduct and dismissed from service. I followed the University’s procedures and appealed first to the Vice-Chancellor and then to the Appeal Panel. During this period I found myself at times writing SOS notes to Mr Sorrell to act on my behalf in particular ways in order that my legal position was not placed in jeopardy, which added to my sense of feeling that I was experiencing a religious phenomena. I appealed (hoping to have the full truth raised at the Appeal Hearing) on grounds that my own arguments in defence on each issue of the allegations of misconduct had, quite evidently, not yet been received by University of Greenwich Management for consideration. An appeal hearing was arranged which I did not attend but on 5th October 1998 I sent in a letter in defence. The Appeal Panel decided not to uphold my Appeal but stated that that it required further information on my medical condition as it believed that there were medical grounds on which it should reconsider the decision. It had also taken on board the suggestion from a manager that I had been confrontational towards management. I wrote to the Vice Chancellor Professor Fussey a letter outlining the unfairness of the proceedings hitherto and that Mr McWilliam who had presided over the Disciplinary Hearing was prejudiced against me. The letter was entitled DEFENCE DOCUMENT: DISCIPLINARY APPEAL HEARING DATE, WITNESSES AND DOCUMENTS FOR APPEAL PANEL/APPEAL TO LIFT SUSPENSION FROM WORK. In this letter there was another clue as to what I was engaged in. I wrote that I had stopped working on British Poultry Science manuscripts to move on to higher things from this noddy work. There was no reply from the University. The medical reports could not be provided in time and my dismissal took effect from 20 October 1998.

I believed that both my General Practitioner doctor Dr Sudhir Patel and the BUPA Hospital were also manipulated by the University of Greenwich and I stopped going to BUPA. I did not actually take any of the tablets prescribed to me by the psychiatrist but wrote to Dr Rao that I was merely suffering from depression. In my letter dated 15 December 2005 I wrote to Dr Rao referring to the plots against me as evidence that ‘Big Brother’ must want a nation of morons in a police state in the UK, such was the nature of the conspiracy that I was being victimised with. There was no information on my prognosis. A full recovery from my illness would have meant that in the absence of any work for me I would have been offered redundancy with over £55,000 redundancy payment since the University was making redundancies at about this time. As things turned out I did not even receive my full statutory sick pay entitlement followed by Incapacity Benefit. It was apparent that the University was only interested in giving me a bad name with the gross misconduct charges and terminating my employment rapidly.

I was an Assistant Editor of the journal British Poultry Science based in Edinburgh. I knew that I had to try and prolong my Assistant Editorship of British Poultry Science for as long as possible to retain some credibility as a scientist. But the manuscripts that I was responsible for were being messed about by the Editorial Office and referees who were not sending back the referees’ reports to me in time. Staff at the Editorial Office manipulated referees and authors not to cooperate with me from about July 1997 and especially during the summer of 1998. I wrote a letter dated 10 September 1998 to Dr Mieras, British Poultry Science Editorial Assistant critical of him, and in which I highlighted each one of my manuscript issues that the company must address, under the title BPS ISSUES CONCERNING THE PERFORMANCE OF EDITORIAL ASSISTANT but I knew fully well that several of the scientific staff were involved in manipulating my manuscripts. I had sent separate copies of the letter to Professor Sally Solomon, Dr J McNab and Dr G Perry but there was no response to the letter from any one. Having completed my outstanding manuscript work no further papers were sent to me for editing and I was soon relieved of my duties as an Assistant Editor of the Journal. I had completed my outstanding tasks and reflected on the words written to Professor Fussey in my 5th October 1998 letter that I had moved on to ‘higher things’ from this noddy work of editing papers: was I seeking religion or religious knowledge that I was writing such words, I wondered, and is this what advaita is?

The University had to be tackled on how it was involved with the proceedings leading up to the World Poultry Science Symposium to be held in Peebles on 24 June 1999. I could not take my case to the Industrial Tribunal until the situation was clear and this meant seeing out the date of the Symposium. Dr Jim McNab had withheld cooperation from me during the preparation phase of the conference and I therefore decided that it would be inappropriate for me to write my paper and attend the Symposium. Since I had sought Departmental funds of £150 for the preparatory work and this issue was not being addressed by the University, the Symposium issue would be central to my contention to the Industrial Tribunal that WPSA-UK Branch scientists had ganged up on me with the University of Greenwich in this and the British Poultry Science journal matter on which my Assistant Editorship was being terminated by making it appear that I could no longer effectively carry out my work. The disadvantage of seeing out the date of the Peebles Symposium to ascertain all the evidence was that there was a three month time limit from the date of one’s dismissal within which applicants were obliged to bring their cases to the Industrial Tribunal unless they could prove that there were exceptional circumstances for which the delay was justified.

On 3 July 1999 I submitted the following Application Form to the Ashford Employment Tribunal Service EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS SERVICE, Tufton House, Tufton Street, Ashford, Kent TN23 1RJ, for
(a) RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND WORKPLACE HARASSMENT.
(b) UNFAIR DISMISSAL
and citing under Dates of employment: August 1979 to ? 1999, that the effective termination of employment date was a matter in dispute; and seeking reinstatement which included compensation. The following particulars of claim were submitted.

Racial discrimination and workplace harassment

Staff of the University engaged in systematic harassment on me over a period of one and half years leading up to 24 April 1998. From September 1997, this harassment took place almost on a weekly basis, the objective being seemingly to demoralise me and to destroy my international reputation. When these failed, staff engaged in provocation to get me to respond in such a manner that could then be construed as constituting misconduct. The incidents on which I was tormented were numerous and ranged from blatant racial discrimination in the allocation of research funds and overseas work; plagiarism of my research ideas; attack on my character with accusation of false pretences; attempts to force me into accepting blame for project financial irregularities for which another organisation was responsible; holding a ‘dummy’ disciplinary hearing the purpose being, seemingly, to ‘cover up’ previous issues constituting harassment; playing mischief with my mail (particularly electronic mail) and my annual leave sheet. The most important of the incidents perpetrated and which are the subject of criminal investigations, was a car attack incident on me (my solicitors appointed by the insurance company to investigate this incident and then act on my behalf in court as regards my Uninsured Losses have informed me that court proceedings of some nature is to take place); and my Credit Card details being passed on to another organisation which then siphoned funds from my Bank Account in order to provoke and harass me (the full circumstances of this are being investigated by banking system).

Unfair Dismissal

In the absence of any legitimate grounds for dismissing me, a few of the incidents of workplace harassment on me were then themselves converted into issues packaged as comprising alleged ‘misconduct’ on my part for disciplinary hearings that were being arranged. I was unfairly suspended from work on 24 April 1998; unfairly because the sole objective of my suspension was to prevent me obtaining the evidence that I would need to defend myself on these issues by interviewing relevant staff and obtaining appropriate documents. The disciplinary hearings themselves were conducted in my absence on certificated sick leave (my GP provided statements and Med 3 Certificates that were submitted to the University as proof) and my salary was also stopped unfairly to put further pressure on me and my family into abandoning my attempts to seek justice by collecting all the evidence which I was gradually beginning to accumulate. In addition to not allowing me a reasonable opportunity to defend myself against the allegations of misconduct by my appearance in person before the disciplinary hearings, even a Defence Document which I had managed to prepare at home while sick and submitted to the University was not permitted to be considered by the Disciplinary Hearing Appeal Panel, as is evident from the letter dated 19 March 1999 sent to me by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor D. Fussey in response to the queries raised in my letter dated 15 March 1999 (documents available if required). Thus, in effect the University refused my suggestion in October 1998 to seek the assistance of the Arbitration Conciliation and Advisory Service to settle this dispute. Professor Fussey further wrote that there was no point in continuing correspondence with the University concerning this dispute whilst at the same time refusing ‘point-blank’ to answer the central question that I had requested the University to clarify, namely whether I had been permitted at any stage to prepare for and participate in a Scientific Symposium to which I was invited as a very important guest speaker whilst I remained suspended from work. Since it was becoming increasingly clear that University staff may have been in direct contact with the Symposium organisers concerning this matter, I found myself with no option but to wait until this Symposium was over (on 24 June 1999) before I could be certain of all the evidence that I needed in order to present my case to the Industrial Tribunal for Unfair Dismissal and a systematic campaign of harassment and attempts to ‘blacken’ my name in order to tarnish my international reputation.

The Employment Tribunal arranged a Hearing which I did not attend for the stated reason that I could not find my way to the Tribunal offices but the real reason was that the Tribunal had failed to force the WPSA-UK scientists to give evidence to the Hearing. Instead the Tribunal ruled that my case could not be considered as it was submitted out of time for both Unfair Dismissal and Racial Discrimination. I appealed this decision to the Employment Appeal Tribunal Audit House, 58 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0DS. It refused to consider the matter. I then appealed to the Civil Appeals Office (Court of Appeal) at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London WC2A 2LL, which too did not wish to consider the matter. I took the Courts Leave to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

Proceedings of The Medway County Court

There were three cases lodged at Medway County Court. The first one was taken out by Moore and Blatch solicitors, citing me as the Plaintiff, against Ms Jenny Lynn originally at Southampton County Court but which was subsequently transferred to Medway County Court under Claim No S0806411. It involved the car incident of 12 November 1997. Initially I had made it clear to Direct Line that it was free to conduct whatever proceedings it wished so long as I was not going to be liable for any of the costs if the case failed but on seeing it was not investigating the cirucumstances properly I then warned Direct Line (indirectly calling it a Toad of the government which I felt that was involved in attempting to cover up the matter) and Moore Blatch not to attempt to represent my interests to the Court. I wrote to Direct Line on 30 October 1998 with Reference to 9745538500/CLT1/107 – Claire Titmus; Dear Sir ’RE: A TOAD – TRAFFIC ACCIDENT ON 12 NOVEMBER 1997’ Thank you for your letter dated 26 October 1998 (sent first class but bearing a postmark of 28 October 1998 and delivered by ‘Royal Mail Customer Services’ in the postman’s second/‘special’ round on 29 October 1998) – in reply to my letter of 15 October 1998, faxed to ‘Direct Line’ at 9.45 am. In view of the urgency indicated by the double use of the phrase ‘as soon as possible’ in a 52-word letter concerning telephone conversations, I am writing to you today. I stress that I am unable to attend Court on 6 November 1998 at 2.00 pm. As I indicated from my letter of 15 October 1998, I am currently receiving intensive medical treatment for ill health and am therefore unable to prepare myself for an Arbitration Hearing/Court Case – I presume you are by now aware of my ‘spoilt’ photos and the replacement ‘slide film’ (accidentally; incidentally?) given to me by Boots, The Chemists? And as you may also have realised I do not trust solicitors/barristers appointed by ‘Direct Line’ or Third Parties in any Court Hearings/Proceedings, having now amply studied the real-life functioning of the ‘British Criminal’s Jestice System’. I have therefore concluded that only I will represent myself in Court for the complete recovery of my Uninsured Losses (which must now be quantified again) arising from that Toad-Traffic Accident on 12 November 1997. Accordingly, I will contact Direct Line for a mutually-convenient Arbitration Hearing Date at Medway County Court as soon as my health condition permits. I trust this will meet with your approval for the present; however, please write to me, even on a Sunday, if there are still any outstanding problems for the doctor to spin out. Incidentally, is my Policy already backed by Norwich Union for Accidental Death Benefit Plan; it is just that the Company has sent a reminder today with a new ‘deadline’ of 5 November 1998 for acceptance of terms – so time is running out, is it not the case?

Despite this letter a Hearing took place on 8 February 1999 before District Judge Diamond and in my absence a Court order was passed against me that Plaintiff’s claim be dismissed with Judgement for the Defendant on its counterclaim of £1549.51. I was not informed of the Order until 2002 and as soon as I received a copy of the Order, I appealed against it both at Medway Country Court on 21st March 2002 and to the High Court without success. Direct Line Insurance Company met the costs awarded against me in the case.

The second case which I initiated was against the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) for failing to take my case to the Industrial Tribunal as I had requested. Following a telephone conversation with Mr Kynvin of Maidstone County Court on 12 July 2000 I received two N1 Claim Forms the first of which I submitted with a 22 page attachment document on 9 August 2000 to Medway County Court because it was nearer to where I lived. The brief details of Claim for a value of £200 were: Denial of access to Justiciary with respect to the application to Industrial Tribunal (Case Reference No VDL/U58.1B; LR/G; 23, of Employment Tribunal Service, Ashford Regional Station, Tufton House, Tufton Street, Ashford, Kent TN231RJ). The particulars of Claim were: Whilst giving me the impression of helping me with my legal claims, the Citizens Advice Bureau is not providing me with the required advice, for some strange reason.

The Medway County Court (MCC) issued me, on 14 August 2000, a Notice of Issue document (Claim No ME002953) which contained a Request for Judgement slip. The CAB defended against my Claim, initially asking the Court to refer the papers to the District Judge so that the court might consider whether the statement of case should be struck out pursuant to Rule 3.4 (2) (a) on the grounds that it discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim. This was rejected by the Judge but I was asked to fill in an N150 Allocation Questionnaire before 18 September 2000.

The CAB’s defence document stated that ‘The Defendant will object that the Claim Form and Particulars of Claim in this action disclose no reasonable cause of action against it. On 12 August 1998, the Claimant sought advice from a Citizens Advice Bureau advisor at the Gillingham bureau (contact sheet at pages 1 and 2 of this bundle). He indicated that for the previous 18 months he had been harassed by his employers and had been dismissed after a preliminary hearing. He told the advisor that he had appealed and that he had already tried to get help from a solicitor and had been offered £20,000 by his employers. He declined to tell the advisor the name of the solicitors. The Claimant asked for advice about making an application to an Industrial Tribunal and how much he might receive in damages if he became unemployed. The Claimant was given the Industrial Tribunal booklet and advised to complete the application form if he wanted to go ahead. He was advised that the bureau might well be able to help him if he called on a Tuesday or a Thursday when the advisors who knew most about the Employment Tribunal would be in attendance; he was informed that the bureau could not promise to accompany the Claimant or speak for him in court. The Claimant also sought, and was given, advice about the Job Seeker’s Allowance. Nothing more was heard from the Claimant until 21 June 2000 when at about midday the Claimant sent a two page fax to the Gillingham bureau being his letter of 21 June 2000. Shortly after 1.00 pm on the same day the Claimant attended at the Gillingham bureau and delivered a hard copy of the same letter, this time with the 10 enclosures. On 28 June 2000 Alan Lawson, service manager of the Gillingham bureau having considered the Claimant’s letter and enclosures, wrote to the Claimant and asked him to telephone as soon as possible and he made a file note as follows:- “From letters received from client it is unclear at what stage his case has got to at the Employment Tribunal. Letter sent to client requesting that he telephone me to discuss issues in greater detail”. The Claimant has attached to his Claim Form a copy of a faxed letter to the Gillingham bureau (page 8) dated 30 June 2000 in which the Claimant maintains that he left a telephone message on the Bureau’s ansaphone that morning “concerning the advisory outcome of my previous consultations with your office”. The Defendant has no record of a message being left on the ansaphone on the number stated by the Claimant (573525) which is the number of the bureau’s Money Advice Line, nor of having received the faxed letter itself. In any event on 25 July 2000 (3½ weeks later) the Claimant did telephone the Gillingham bureau and he spoke to Alan Lawson again (contact sheet page 6(2nd entry)). He told Mr Lawson that he, the Claimant had been suspended from work in April 1998, that he had the disciplinary hearing in July 1998, that his salary stopped in autumn 1998 but he continued to work up until the summer of 1999. The Claimant told Mr Lawson that the Employment Tribunal had accepted his effective date of termination as 24 June 1999 but nothing further. Mr Lawson informs me, and noted on the contact sheet, that he was about to mention to the Claimant that he could consider action against his solicitor and Mr Lawson was intending to look up the relevant information in order to advise the Claimant but the Claimant stated that he no longer wished to talk to Mr Lawson and terminated the call. Since July 2000 the Claimant has not further contacted the Bureau for advice and no advice has been given or offered to him. The Defendant is a registered charity whose purposes are (inter alia) to give free advice to the public. The Claimant has no contract with the Defendant and the Defendant cannot be in breach of contract. The Defendant is not acting and has not acted for the Claimant in relation to an Employment Tribunal claim. The Claimant either is or has been represented by solicitors. The Defendant has not denied the Claimant access to any Courts or Tribunals and has given no advice to the Claimant which was negligent or which could in any way have had this effect. The Claimant has no reasonable cause of action against the Defendant. The Defendant will seek an order for costs pursuant to Part 27.14 (d) of the Civil Procedure Rules on the grounds that the Claimant is behaving unreasonably in bringing this claim against the Defendant.

I did not fill in the allocation questionnaire before the deadline set and on 27 September 2000 MCC passed a General form of judgement or order: Before District Judge Caddick sitting at Medway County Court, Anchorage House, 47-67 High St, Chatham, Kent ME4 4DW. It is ordered that unless you, the claimant, do by 4.00 pm on 02 October 2000 file your allocation questionnaire your claim will be struck out. Dated 22 September 2000. I requested another N150 allocation questionnaire but received on 9 November 2000 an N150A allocation questionnaire limited to allocation to track Master’s/District judge’s directions which I duly completed requesting the case to be moved on to fast-track. I then telephoned the local Lord Chancellor’s office in Gravesend and asked if the Lord Chancellor could order the MCC to send me with an N150 allocation questionnaire now that I was in a position to complete it to maximum impact as the Claimant of my case statement: a conspiracy of racial discrimination and harassment perpetrated against me by means of concerted criminal behaviour.’ I then petitioned Her Majesty the Queen, dated 9 November 2000, as follows: Your Majesty, I have tried all the legal avenues open to ordinary subjects to access British Justiciary, having just spoken finally to the local Lord Chancellor’s Department to compel Medway County Court to issue me with a N150 Allocation Questionnaire now that I am able to complete it to maximum impact as the Claimant of my Case Statement, ‘A Conspiracy of Racial Discrimination and Harassment Perpetrated against Me By Means of Concerted Criminal Behaviour’; this after, somehow, concluding the detective work necessary to ascertain the full facts of the matter that I have been complaining about. Your Majesty, I read in my copy of the Reader’s Digest ‘You and Your Rights – An A to Z Guide to the Law’ that any British subject is entitled as a last resort to petition the Queen if he is dissatisfied with the actions or decisions of the government which acts in her name. It is with this in mind that I am hereby requesting you to intervene in this matter, as is constitutionally appropriate. Yours truly.

On 22 November 2000 I received a letter from Buckingham Palace from a Chief Correspondence Officer, Mrs Deborah Bean, stating, ‘The Queen has asked me to thank you for your letter of 9th November expressing your wish to petition her on a ‘rascism’ matter. As a constitutional Sovereign, Her Majesty acts on the advice of her Ministers, and I have, therefore, been instructed to send your letter to the Lord Irvine of Lairg, the Lord Chancellor, so that he may know of your approach to Her Majesty on this matter, and may consider the points you raise’. The Court Service from Southside, 105 Victoria Street wrote a letter dated 21 December 2000: Thank you for your letter of 9 November 2000 to the Queen. Your letter has been passed to the Court Service which is responsible for the administration of the Crown and county courts in England and Wales. The Court Service is an Executive Agency of the Lord Chancellor’s Department. You say you are a claimant in a civil case and you require a N150 form. This form is available from all county courts. It is not clear at what stage your case has reached. I am unable to give you any legal advice, however, you may wish to consider consulting a solicitor at your own expense or a Citizens Advice Bureau where you can obtain free legal advice. I am sorry that I cannot be of any further help in this matter. The Court Service in Victoria wrote under TO1934. I wrote back that my petition concerns a ‘racism matter’ in the Administration of Justice and telephoned the Court Service in Southside Victoria Street London to discuss the complaint. Since Judgement Order had still not been passed in ME002953 they had failed to meet the requirements of the Citizens Charter and so I wished to take the matter up with the next higher authority the Lord Chancellor’s Office.

On 13 November 2000 I telephoned MCC and stated, ‘I am phoning concerning ME002953 to report that the Citizens Advice Bureau has still not provided me with the required advice with regard to my claim. I therefore wanted my Claim Amount to rise to the Unlimited Amount category. Mrs Wren replied ‘ Your case was struck out.’ I went into MCC on 14 November and left £473 in cash on the table for Mrs S. Miller to pick up as the balance of the £500 fee needed for the Unlimited Amount category of claims. On 14 November 2000, MCC returned £473 by cheque to me with a copy of the 27 September 2000 order that allocation questionnaire was required by 2 October and enclosing an N244 Application Notice. The letter stated that ‘you may apply to the court to restore your claim and I enclose the appropriate forms (N244) for your attention. Should you wish to make such application please note that a £50 fee is payable.

At this point I decided to launch a case against the University of Greenwich itself. This third case at the Medway County Court stemmed from a discussion with Maidstone Court Centre on 20 November 2000 in which I explained that the Court Case in Medway County Court was caught up in procedural anomalies which despite efforts it was not possible to resolve to my satisfaction. This however still left me with my outstanding concern of how to seek legal damages from those organisations and individuals who have criminally conspired to maliciously destroy my scientific career the evidence for which is contained in the 22-page attachment-document that was lodged at Medway County Court with my N1 Claim Form. To enable me now to proceed with this Case I was requesting the legal clearance necessary that none of the specific issues of the harassment referred-to in the said 22-page attachment-document are any longer sub-judice to any proceedings outstanding at the Medway County Court, at the Ashford Employment Tribunal Service, at the Employment Appeals Tribunal, or at the Civil Appeals Office of the Royal Courts of Justice. In effect I sought the Judge’s clearance to pursue damages against organisations and individuals who were reported to previous tribunals and courts as mitigating circumstances. The statement of case was: damages due to me arising from loss of my scientific career from the criminal actions against me of the University of Greenwich and co-conspirators as described in the 22 page attachment document lodged in Medway County Court. I was seeking £50,000 plus in compensation.

After initially issuing the number MS003408 Maidstone County Court returned my N1 Claim Form with a cheque for £500 having decided not to issue a Claim Number. It passed a General Form of Judgement or Order dated 5th/6th December 2000: Before District Judge Millward sitting at Maidstone Combined Court, Barker Road Maidstone, Kent ME16 8EQ. Upon the Claimant not appearing and the Defendant not appearing. The claim that you submitted to the court on the 4th December was referred to the District Judge who made the following order. What is the state of the proceedings in Medway County Court? Do they relate to the same cause of action? If so why is a new action being commenced here? If the proceedings in Medway have been concluded ie a judgment has been given and the claimant is dissatisfied with that judgment then the correct course is to appeal against that decision and not simply issue fresh proceedings in a different court. I issued the same Claim against the University of Greenwich and co-conspirators at Medway County Court on 8 February 2001 where it was accorded the Claim No ME010463.

On 19 February 2001 the Court sent me a Notice that Acknowledgment of Service has been filed document, stating that the Defendant filed an acknowledgment of Service on 19 February 2001. The defendant responded to the claim indicating an intention to defend all of the claim. The defendant has 28 days from the date of service of the claim form with particulars of claim, or of the particulars of claim, to file a defence. The University of Greenwich submitted that the matter of unfair dismissal and racial discrimination had already been considered by the Industrial Tribunal and was therefore an abuse of the process of the Medway County Court. A Court Order was passed by District Judge Caddick in my absence that the Claimant’s statement of case be struck out as disclosing no reasonable grounds for claim and as being an abuse of the process of the Court. Claim be dismissed. Claimant shall pay Defendant’s costs of claim and application summarily assessed at £755 (being legal fee of £600, VAT £105, and court fee paid £50) to be paid by Claimant to Defendant by 25 April 2001.

I was not permitted to Appeal against the Order, merely to request that the Order be set aside which I did on 27 April 2001. I obtained a transcript of the Hearing which made clear that the Judge was equivocal about whether or not the statement of case represented an abuse of the process of the court. The whole case transcript was not being issued to me and I complained to the Court Service Southside Victoria Street London. Miss T Holland wrote supporting the Transcribers signing the letter from the desk of ‘Civil and Family Support’ which I took as a threat that I was due to face prison term. The court would not let me bring in the officials of the British Poultry Science Journal as co-defendants and witnesses at any of the Hearings that were arranged because it stated that ‘the claim was struck out on a question of law, not fact.’ In the end I did not attend any of the hearings. On 24 July 2001 District Judge Caddick passed a judgement that upon reading Claimants file including correspondence between the Claimant and court, and upon neither party attending it is ordered that Claimants application dated 27 April 2001 be struck out.

On 16 August 2001 I took the ME010463 matter to the Masters Support Unit and the Court of Appeal and then to the Judge in Chambers Department of the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, filling in an Application Notice in which I stated that I wished an order to be made that ‘I am the victim in the matter perverting the course of justice by court- and tribunal-associated staff against Dr S. Panigrahi submitted to the High Court since 16 August 2001’. An Appellant’s Notice on car incident case SO806411 was also submitted to the Judge in Chambers Department on 29 March 2002 for the attention of Mr P Montserrat. This was passed on to the Supreme Court Circuit High Court Appeals Office which advised that the Appeal should begin at Medway County Court under a Circuit Judge. There Judge Cryan was appointed but he ruled that ‘This appeal is years out of time, it requires leave. No application for leave is before me. Until one is made the appeal cannot progress.’ I appealed this decision at Lewes Appeal Centre (Case C14/02) after checking with the High Court Appeals Office. The matter was considered by a Deputy High Court Judge Kennedy QC, who ruled that I had not got a potential appeal at the Lewes Appeal Centre. The matter went to the Court of Appeal where a case No of CC/2002/PTA/0408 was given, and I sent in a copy of the 17 April 2001 dated order of Medway County Court under ME010463 to the court on 22 May 2002 for its consideration. Concerning ME010463, Medway County Court wrote on 22 May 2002: The District Judge states that you did not attend the hearing on 11 April 2001 (order dated 17 April 2001) you then applied to set aside the order, the application was listed for 25th May 2001 and adjourned to 23rd July 2001. You did not attend so the application was struck out.’ I copied this letter to the Court of Appeal and asked, ‘has permission to Appeal been granted yet?

On 17 January 2002 I took out an Application Notice for my Claims in ME002953 (ME010463) to be restored by Medway County Court because the defendants did not file an adequate defence, implying that both were the same case and that CAB is to be considered a co-defendant of the University of Greenwich. No action was taken by the Court. On 13 March 2003 I applied again to Medway County Court to have ME002953 restored and insisting that ME002953 and ME010463 were part of the same case. The hearing was scheduled for 22 April 2003 which I did not attend. On 23 April 2003 Deputy District Judge Morling passed the judgement: upon hearing Counsel for the Defendant and the Claimant not attending, the claimant’s application to adjourn be refused. The claimant’s application to restore proceedings be dismissed. The claimant is to pay the defendant’s costs at £150. I wrote back stating that I wished to appeal this order, and filled in an Appellant’s Notice stating the grounds for appeal as being: I applied for the Hearing on 22 April 2003 to be postponed indefinitely not for it to be adjourned due to ill health. The reply to it was that the appeal had been filed out of time, therefore an application is required to appeal out of time. I challenged this judgement.

From 9 November 2001 I began a process of seeking a Judicial Review at the Administrative Court of the Royal Courts of Justice, of all Medway County Court Orders and decisions concerning proceedings under Claim Numbers SO806411, ME002953, and ME010463. I stated that I am a victim of a miscarriage of justice perpetrated by the British Criminal Justice System-associated individuals. The court titled the case, ‘The Queen on the application of Panigrahi versus Medway County Court’ and gave a Case No of CO/1680/2002. On 23 April 2002 Mr Justice Keith passed an order In the High Court of Justice, Queens Bench Division Administrative Court: The Claimant is under the impression that permission to proceed with his claim for judicial review has already been granted. That is incorrect. Permission has not been granted. In order for the court to decide whether permission should be granted the Claimant must (a) identify the decisions of Medway County Court which he wishes to challenge, (b) state the basis upon which he alleges that they are amenable to judicial review and (c) explain why permission to challenge them should be granted. I therefore direct the Claimant to lodge with the Administrative Court Office by 4.00 pm on Friday 3 May (a) copies of the orders of Medway County Court which he wishes to challenge, and (b) a statement setting out the basis upon which he alleges that they are amenable to judicial review and why permission to challenge them should be granted. If the claimant fails to comply with these directions, the claim will be struck out.’ I wrote back on 30 April 2002: Dear Sir, Please send me a copy of the Defendant’s response in order that I may reconsider the merits of my Application in the light of the Defendant’s evidence.’

On 17 May 2003 I paid the first instalment of £50 to Archon Solicitors towards the cost of the Order of Medway County Court under ME010463. I made two further payments of £50 but since Archon solicotors refused to pass on some of this sum to Citizens Advice Bureau, I stopped making further payments. I wrote to Archon that no further payments will be made to you pending the outcome of my Appeal and copied this letter to Medway County Court. The Citizens Advice Bureau had changed its solicitors to Davies Arnold and Cooper as a diversionary tactic. I referred the matter to the Interim Applications Court of the Royal Courts of Justice, and to the Duty Judge, Mr Justice Gibbs. Nothing came of it. On 19 May 2003 I wrote to the Judge in Chambers Room E101 at the Royal Courts of Justice London that I required a Hearing with a High Court Judge to institute the Voluntary Bill of Indictment documentation against court officials who with judges had conspired to pervert the course of justice in civil proceedings against me: these persons are District Judge Caddick, Mrs T Fagg and Mr S.R. Savage.

On 29 July 2003 I wrote to the Citizens Advice Bureau further to its Defence Document to Medway County Court to give me details of its verbal or written exchanges with the Ashford Employment Tribunal Service during June-July 2000 because I believed that perjury may have been committed. On 17 September 2003 Judge Murdoch QC upon the Courts own motion made an order of its own initiative and without a hearing on ME002953 that: Claimants application for permission to appeal be refused on grounds that it does not appear to the Court that there is any realistic prospect that any appeal would succeed; there is no other reason why it appears that the proposed appeal should proceed to a hearing; and there is no explanation for the delay in seeking permission to appeal such as would justify the grant of an extension of time for appealing. I wrote back on 19 September titled ME002953/ME010463 I am writing to enquire what progress has been made to consider my Application to have the 17 September 2003-dated Order of Medway County Court made on its own hearing, heard at a Hearing on the explanations provided to the Court, namely that the Department of Social Security had deliberately withheld my Benefit Entitlements and lawyers appointed to represent my Case were in breach of trust and contract. A hearing was arranged for 16 October 2003. The court wrote back that: permission to appeal has not been granted. Defendants have not been notified of this hearing at the request of the Judge. The hearing is solely for you to put forward your points regarding progressing your permission to appeal. I wrote back: Please let me know the final decision of the Court on Point 1 a of the Order namely whether it does now appear to the court that there is a realistic prospect that my Appeal would succeed. I further wrote that I shall attend the Hearing but require the Hearing to be attended by the Citizen Advice Bureau, Mr Sorrell of Gillingham, Liberty, Mr M.L Dutta of Birmingham, Moore and Blatch solicitors, the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors, and the Legal Services Ombudsman for cross examination. The court wrote back saying it could not tell you if my appeal was going to succeed or not. Furthermore the judge only wants to hear from you at the hearing of your permission to appeal. No other person was needed. I wrote back stating that what I shall present to His Honour Judge Murdoch is that the Citizens Advice Bureau, Mr Sorrell of Gillingham, Liberty, Mr M.L. Dutta of Birmingham, Moore Blatch Solicitors, the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors and the Legal Services Ombudsman did not represent my Case to the Court in the manner in which they were supposed to since 9 August 2000 when I lodged my case at Medway County Court. On 16 October 2003 Judge Murdoch passed an Order that: upon hearing the solicitor for the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Claimant, Dr Panigrahi being neither present nor represented, it is ordered that the Claimant’s application for permission to appeal against the order of Deputy District Judge Morling made on 22 April 2003 be refused. I appealed this Order on grounds that it was not consistent with the Order of Medway County Court dated 17 September 2003 and wrote to the Kent Magistrates Courts Committee that the two persons engaged in the offence of criminal intent in this Case were Mr Graham Cotton and Mrs Lash of Medway County Court: please therefore reactivate my private prosecution. Medway County Court wrote back on 21 October 2003 that there was no appeal against the order refusing you permission to appeal, and ‘as this matter has now finally been concluded, I will not enter into any further correspondence with you regarding this case. Any further letter will just be placed on file without answer. Please also resist phoning this office regarding your case’. I wrote back on 17 November 2003 that I would like to proceed with my Claim against each of the individual criminals separately. Please send me the necessary Forms.

By 30 March 2005 it was clear that the Medway County Court had not been able to move on any applications that should have been submitted by the University of Greenwich and Citizens Advice Bureau to enforce their costs order. It was time to submit a defence against all three Court orders. I wrote to Medway County Court: I need to inform the Court that I have still not received any part of the Statutory Sick Pay followed by Incapacity Benefit from the Department of Social Security despite the appropriate Med3 Certificate having been submitted. The University of Greenwich should have initiated these payments while I was still under its employment. Because of this despite being still treated for severe mental illness, to make ends meet I was forced to try and find a job; however, following considerable effort this has proved largely fruitless no doubt due to my illness. I have only been able to find a part-time cleaning job which pays £39 per week. Consequently I am still unable to pay the amounts of money arising out of the Medway County Court Orders issued against me. In this regard please note that the University of Greenwich had offered to pay me £20,000 without prejudice but I had opted to wait and collect the evidence required for my Court Case first. No payment has been made to me by the University so far. I am therefore hereby requesting a Court Order to be made against the Department of Social Security to compel it to pay me the total of Statutory Sick Pay and Incapacity Benefit dating back to September1998 when direct payments from the University of Greenwich to me ceased. This is the only way I shall be able to fulfil my obligations with respect to the Medway County Court Orders (kindly also note that Direct Line Insurance is legally required to meet any payments to be made on Orders against me under Case No SO806411).

(My information was wrong as I subsequently found out. The University had paid me Statutory Sick Pay for two months in 1998 and was not under any obligation to submit my case for this payment to the Department of Social Security.)

When after 7 days no reply was received, I telephoned the Medway County Court. The only response of the Court official was to send me two N245 Forms (Application for suspension of a warrant and/or variation of an order). I decided to take no action on these as it would legitimise the particular orders, and preferring instead to wait for an application to be made by the University of Greenwich and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau to enforce their respective orders. This was going to be the only opportunity left for me to put forward my defence and clear my name, which was the ultimate objective. I also sent the following letter, dated 11 April 2005, to the Department of Social Security to cover over its documents to me, and as its silence proved, to expose its complicity: YZ330724D – A REMINDER ABOUT SICK NOTES Thank you for your letter dated 10 August 2004 and please accept my apologies for this delay in replying. This has been due to the fact that I had to wait for my next appointment with my psychiatrist in Kingsley House, Gillingham (this took place on 23 March 2005) and a subsequent appointment with my doctor, Dr S. Patel of Wigmore Medical Centre, which is now arranged for 14 April 2005. I have also recently informed the Medway County Court that I have still not received any part of the Statutory Sick Pay followed by Incapacity Benefit from the Department of Social Security despite the appropriate Med3 Certificate having been submitted to you. Because of this I was forced to try and find a job. You have instead asked me to send you another sick note saying that my earlier one runs out on 15 August 2004. I am hereby requesting you again that you pay me the total of my Statutory Sick Pay and Incapacity Benefit entitlements dating back to September1998 and until 15 August 2005. Please let me know what further needs to be done by me concerning this claim.

It was clear that neither the Medway County Court nor the Department of Social Security wished to engage in correspondence with me as this would have given me the opportunity to put forward my case. I had noted this silence with each and every agent of the state that I had contacts with since the very beginning of my struggle. Notwithstanding, the statement by Medway County Court that I had abused the process of court had to be tackled and accordingly, on 22 May 2005 I submitted an Application Notice to Medway County Court on ME010463 requesting an Order that my claim against the University of Greenwich and co-defendants dated 7 February 2001 be restored because of fresh evidence that the University of Greenwich did not act as it was required to do with regard to my Statutory Sick Pay application while I was still under its employment which has led to a considerable loss of income for me. In Part C I filled in the following: I wish to rely on the following evidence in support of this application. 1. The attached letter to the Department of Social Security (11 April 2005) to which there has been no reply. 2. To respond to the Defence, my claim is not brought for unfair dismissal or racial discrimination but for criminal harassment during the period of my employment at the University of Greenwich. Whilst it is true that the Ashford Employment Tribunal was unwilling to extend the time-limit for me to have brought my Claim for Unfair Dismissal and Racial Discrimination beyond the required three months (in exceptional circumstances as I pleaded), it is my contention that the University’s criminal actions in suspending my scientific work illegally through blatant disregard of University’s own procedures are still civil offences and therefore punishable in a County Court. Further substantive arguments: (a) It is my belief that a member of the University’s staff passed on my Barclays VISA Card Number to the British Society of Animal Science for it to then siphon money out of my Account in order to harass me, and is hence an example of conspiracy. (b) It is my belief that Ms Jenny Lynn of the Director’s Office at Natural Resources Institute deliberately turned her car into my car as I drove in order to intimidate me because of a disciplinary hearing against me arranged for later that day. (c) It is my belief that staff of the University of Greenwich and/or NR-International which is part of the University entered into a conspiracy with members of British Poultry Science Limited to ruin my Assistant Editorship for the Journal and have me removed from this prestigious post. (d) Further details of criminal harassment not yet addressed by the University of Greenwich are detailed in my 5 May 1998 dated letter for the Vice-Chancellor Professor Fussey contained in the 22 page attachment document. 3. For these reasons, I respectfully submit that the Case must go to Trial.

I paid a £50 Court Fee for the application notice to be considered but there was no response from Medway County Court. On 2 September 2005 I wrote another letter to Medway County Court requesting update on quashing of the Court Orders under ME002953/ME010463. The Court telephoned me and said that there has been no judgement passed on the matter.

Further Court Proceedings
I had felt thoroughly dissatisfied with the court proceedings and on 13 March 2006 I wrote to the Customer Service Unit, The Court Service, Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6QT, concerning the inaction by Medway County Court on my Application Notice dated 22 May 2005, that: Please refer to your Case Number TO01934/CSU00210 dating back to 2001 which was the subject of a petition of mine to Her Majesty the Queen. I attach herewith a copy of my Application Notice dated 22 May 2005 to the Medway County Court to restore my Case against the University of Greenwich and co-defendants for which I have paid the Court Fee of £50 required for its processing. No action has been taken by the Court on the Application Notice and no explanation has been offered. Please let me know what avenues are now open to me in the British Justice System to seek compensation from those who conspired to destroy my reputation and my scientific career maliciously. The Customer Service Unit wrote back that my complaint did not come under Her Majesty’s Court Service remit and it had sent my letter to Medway County Court to investigate.

On 28 March 2006 I wrote to Mr Paul Clark, the local Member of Parliament under COMPLAINT FOR REFERRAL TO THE PARLIAMENTARY OMBUDSMAN. I contacted your office between 11 and 15 February 2001 and spoke with Ann Davis and wrote a letter to you on 14 February 2001 sent by Fax to your House of Commons office where I spoke with Julie. It concerned gross maladministration at Medway County Court in the administration of justice. My Case against the University of Greenwich and coconspirators bent on ruining my reputation and scientific career was struck out by the Court on spurious grounds, and as the attached documents will show all attempts to have the Case restored is met by a blank wall of silence from Medway County Court. I have complained about this matter to the Customer Service Unit, Her Majesty’s Court Service (part of the Lord Chancellors Department) but as its letter dated 21 March 2006 shows it has decided that the complaint does not fall within its remit and has referred the matter back to the Court which remains unresponsive. I would therefore wish to take this matter to the Parliamentary Ombudsman to investigate but this requires me to approach my Constituency MP who should refer the matter to the Ombudsman. I would be grateful if you would kindly look into the matter as appropriate and let me know if you are agreeable to this course of action.

On 31 March 2006 I received a letter dated 30 March 2006 from Medway County Court stating that I have recently been forwarded a letter from Customer Service Unit in respect of your application filed in the ME010463 in May 2005. Firstly I would like to sincerely apologise that the Court has failed to process your application. This was an administrative error, and your application was placed on the Court file and not actioned. Due to delays you have experienced in this matter, could you please confirm to me whether you would like this application processed and listed for a hearing, or if the matter has now concluded. If you do not want the application listed, the Court will refund you the Court Fee of £50 that you have paid when you filed your application. If you do require the application to be processed, the Court will of course give you the earliest hearing date possible. Once again please accept my apologies for the delays you have experienced in this case. I will await to hear from you before taking any further action.

I replied to the letter that I have still not received any part of the Statutory Sick Pay followed by Incapacity Benefit that I was entitled to from September 1998 to date (please refer to my faxed letter to you dated 30 March 2005) and have suffered financial hardship as a result. I therefore wish my Application Notice dated 22 May 2005 to be processed by the Court as soon as possible.

On 1 April 2006 I sent a letter to Dr G. Poulter, Director of Natural Resources Institute, The University of Greenwich about the forthcoming Court Hearing on ME010463 and a four page skeletal argument that I would be relying on at the Hearing for the University’s comments and proposals for settlement. Dr Poulter did not reply. The Medway County Court arranged a Court Hearing for 14 June 2006. I wrote to the Court asking what had been decided by the Court on the issue of the co-defendants of this Claim in order that the appropriate documents may be served on them. I have only listed the co-defendants as being the British Society of Animal Science, British Poultry Science Journal and World Poultry Science Association-UK Branch; however the Department of Works and Pensions may also qualify as one. The Court did not reply.

The solicitors acting for the University wrote on 10 April 2006 to the Medway County Court that ‘we are somewhat surprised to learn that this matter has been re-listed, given that Dr Panigrahi’s original action (which to all intents and purposes, is identical to the claim that he now seeks to resurrect) was struck out as disclosing no reasonable grounds for claim and for being an abuse of the process of the Court on 17 April 2001. As you will see from the Order, the Claimant was required to pay £755 costs by 25 April 2001. Although he paid a total of £150, he has made no payments since July 2003 and the amount now outstanding together with interest amounts to approximately £950. We would respectfully point out that there is nothing in the Claimant’s application that can possibly be said to constitute any ground for the Court to exercise its discretion to set aside the original Order. Even if the application did disclose a proper ground for allowing the same to proceed to a hearing, the Claimant’s application is far too late coming, as it does, almost five years after the Order which he seeks to set aside. Further and in the alternative, even if the Claimant’s application were in time, we would respectfully submit that his original claim has no prospect of success whatsoever. Further and in the alternative, we would submit that our client would be severely prejudiced if this claim were allowed to proceed given that the events about which the Claimant complains occurred some seven and a half years ago. With respect to the Court, we would submit that the Claimant’s application is co clearly hopeless and without merit that it should be dismissed without our client incurring the costs of having to attend a hearing. In the alternative, we would submit that the application should be stayed generally until such time as the Claimant has paid the costs due under the Order of 17 April 2001 on the basis that, if our client were to incur the costs of attending a further hearing there would, on the face of it, appear to be no realistic prospect of them recovering the totality of their costs. We would further respectfully point out to the Court that the Claimant has been seeking to litigate his claim against our client in both the Employment Tribunal and the County Court since his dismissal from our client’s employment in October 1998. To date, all of his claims have either been dismissed or struck out and, in the circumstances, we would respectfully submit that this is a case where the Court should consider making a Civil Restraint Order against the Claimant. In view of the circumstances of this case, we have not sought to issue a formal application to have the Claimant’s application dismissed without a hearing but, if it is necessary for us to do so, please let us know as a matter of urgency.’

The Medway County Court replied to this letter that ‘The District Judge having considered your letter dated 10 April 2006, directs that the hearing on14 June 2006 stands. He does so on the following grounds. If the Court made an Order on the Claimants latest application of its own initiative which is what the Defendant’s Solicitors are inviting it to do CPR 3.3 (5) applies and the Claimant will be able to make a further application. The Court takes the view that the overriding objective would be best met by the current application being considered at a hearing. If the Application is dismissed the court can consider inter alia making a civil restraint Order pursuant to CPR 23.12. The correspondence is being copied to the Claimant.’

I revised my skeleton argument for the Hearing to include Defamation as being the primary objective of the Application, and sent it to both the Defendant’s solicitor and the Court.

CLAIMANT’S SKELETON ARGUMENTS FOR THE HEARING OF ME010463 AT 14:00 ON 14 JUNE 2006

1. The University of Greenwich was sent, on 1 April 2006, the following arguments (summary of criminal harassment at the University, specific substantive points and conclusion) for its comments and proposals for settlement, but there was no reply from the University.

OUTLINE OF CASE
1. Defamation. My Application Notice dated 22 May 2005 requests the Medway County Court to restore my Claim in ME010463. In this case I am suing the University of Greenwich for Defamation for stating in written form that I was blameworthy of gross misconduct during my period of employment. Any individual has a right to enjoy freedom from unfair attacks on their reputation. Defamation describes a cause of action whereby a person can sue to protect his reputation in the face of a statement about him which is untrue and lowers his reputation in the eyes of a right-thinking person. The law provides for exemplary damages to punish a defendant whose conduct has been wholly inappropriate. I had a long established and unblemished scientific career during which I never harboured any ill-feelings towards anyone nor had I encountered any ill-feelings from anyone at the workplace. I secured two promotions and was earning £30,000 pa. Within two years of the University of Greenwich taking over the Institute I was being attacked weekly and eventually got labeled as being a person of gross misconduct and was dismissed from service. I intend to prove to the Court that this act of the University amounted to Defamation from which I could not recover. In this act the sole objective of the University was to tarnish my international reputation.

2. Whilst the overriding objective of this Claim is to sue for defamation a secondary objective is to seek compensation for criminal harassment with intentional damage to my career and reputation perpetrated on me by the University of Greenwich and co-defendants. My original statement of claim read: damages due to me arising from loss of my scientific career by the criminal actions against me of the University of Greenwich and co-conspirators as described in the 22-page attachment-document lodged in Medway County Court. The co-conspirators (the co-defendants of this case) are the British Society of Animal Science, British Poultry Science Journal, and the World Poultry Science Association-UK Branch. Staff of these institutions combined with those of the University of Greenwich to destroy my18 year scientific career by harassing me, instituting false charges of gross misconduct in employment against me, suspending my scientific work, terminating my employment, not paying my redundancy pay entitlement, terminating my editorship of the prestigious British Poultry Science Journal, and not cooperating with me in a scientific Symposium to which I was invited as a speaker. In the words of Dr B. Blake, Head of Natural Resources Management Department, Natural Resources Institute, the most important thing was to sort me out. This they did as from living a healthy and financially well off life as an international scientist with over 35 scientific publications to my credit, I suffered a nervous breakdown and subsequently became unemployable for any decent job. I am currently employed as a part-time cleaner.

3. As a result of the University’s actions and the intransigence of the Department of Works and Pensions I have not been paid the statutory sick pay and Incapacity Benefit to which I am entitled from 1 October 1998 until 7 July 2004.

4. Notwithstanding the fact that the Industrial Tribunal did not allow a consideration of cases for Unfair Dismissal and Racial Discrimination because my application was submitted outside the three-month time limits, it is argued that the individual actions of the University and co-conspirators against me remain civil offences and are therefore punishable through a County Court instead.

5. The damages due to me include (a) compensation for defamation (b) my redundancy pay entitlement from the University (official redundancy payment of over £55,000); (c) compensation for damage to my career (legal redress value to be assessed); (d) loss of my sick pay and Incapacity Benefit (amount to be quantified); and (e) costs of the case.

SUMMARY OF CRIMINAL HARASSMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY
1. Since the F0004 ‘false pretences’ incident, staff of the University engaged in systematic criminal harassment on me over a period of one and half years leading up to 24 April 1998. From September 1997, this harassment took place almost on a weekly basis, the objective being seemingly to demoralise me and to destroy my international reputation. When these failed, staff engaged in provocation to get me to respond in such a manner that could then be construed as constituting misconduct. The incidents on which I was tormented were numerous and ranged from blatant racial discrimination in the allocation of research funds and overseas work; plagiarism of my research ideas; attack on my character with accusation of false pretences; attempts to force me into accepting blame for project financial irregularities for which another organisation was responsible; holding a ‘dummy’ disciplinary hearing the purpose being, seemingly, to ‘cover up’ previous issues constituting harassment on me; playing mischief with my mail (particularly electronic mail) and my annual leave sheet. The most important of the incidents perpetrated was a car attack incident on me; and my Debit Card details seemingly being passed on to British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) which then siphoned funds from my Bank Account in order to provoke and harass me.

2. In the absence of any legitimate grounds for dismissing me, unknown charges of alleged gross misconduct on my part were concocted for disciplinary hearings that were arranged. The ‘disciplinary action/hearing’ was an attempt to cover-up all the injustices perpetrated against me by a conspiracy of racial discrimination at the highest levels of the University. I was unfairly suspended from work on 24 April 1998; unfairly because the sole objective of my suspension was to prevent me obtaining the evidence that I would need to defend myself on the issues of alleged misconduct by interviewing relevant staff and obtaining appropriate documents. The disciplinary hearings themselves were conducted in my absence on certificated sick leave (my GP provided statements and Med 3 Certificates that were submitted to the University as proof) and my salary was also stopped unfairly to put further pressure on me and my family into abandoning my attempts to seek justice by collecting all the evidence which I was gradually beginning to accumulate. In addition to not allowing me a reasonable opportunity to defend myself against the allegations of misconduct by my appearance in person before the disciplinary hearings, a Defence Document which I had managed to prepare at home while sick and submitted to the University was not permitted to be considered by the Disciplinary Hearing Appeal Panel. Thus, in effect the University refused my suggestion in October 1998 to seek the assistance of the Arbitration Conciliation and Advisory Service to settle this dispute. Professor Fussey further wrote that there was no point in continuing correspondence with the University concerning this dispute whilst at the same time refusing ‘point-blank’ to answer the central question that I had requested the University to clarify, namely whether I had been permitted at any stage to prepare for and participate in a Scientific Symposium to which I was invited as an important guest speaker whilst I remained suspended from work. Since the Symposium organisers were monitoring my difficulties with my employer and misbehaving accordingly, I found myself with no option but to wait until this Symposium was over (on 24 June 1999) before I could be certain of all the evidence that I needed in order to present my case to the Industrial Tribunal for Unfair Dismissal and a systematic campaign of harassment and attempts to ‘blacken’ my name in order to tarnish my international reputation. But the Tribunal was not willing to accept this as a justifiable reason for the delay in my application to the Industrial Tribunal for which there is a three month time limit.

SPECIFIC SUBSTANTIVE POINTS
1. Why did the University offer to pay me, without prejudice, £20,000 and to give me a reference letter, if I had done something so wrong that it amounted to gross misconduct? I wished to be restored to my job or to have paid my full redundancy pay entitlement which amounted to over £55,000, hence this claim is brought to Medway County Court for over £50,000 for settlement.

2. What were the specific charges of gross misconduct brought against me by the University that were the subject of disciplinary hearings in my absence?

3. Why did the University not forward my Case for Statutory Sick Pay to the relevant authorities at the Department of Works and Pension from August 1998? Was it not to prevent me from going on sick leave from the University? As a result of this decision I have not been paid any statutory sick pay and Incapacity Benefit.

4. Why was no pay paid to me for the month of October 1998, when I was supposed to have been employed up to 20 October 1998?

5. I submitted to the University for approval a handwritten letter addressed to Ms Joyce Darling of the BSAS. Why was there no reply to the substantive issue of how the BSAS got hold of my Barclays Connect VISA number to effect the cash withdrawal? BSAS joined in the criminal harassment against me and hence this Case is also brought against the BSAS as a co-defendant of the University of Greenwich.

6. What action was taken by the University on my complaints of racial discrimination in the allocation of research funds?

7. July Call for Concept Notes issue. What action was taken by the University against Mr David Jackson with respect to my 27 July 1997 memorandum? An informal disciplinary meeting was held and I was reprimanded, on issues specifically relating to my alleged discourteous behaviour towards Mr David Jackson and Mr Andy Major. The charges against me were to do with calling a junior administrative staff ( Mr Major) incompetent which I denied. In my defence I stated that Mr Jackson had been blocking my progress out of jealousy. Dr Blake in his memorandum of 13 November 1997 acknowledged that ‘Dr Panigrahi had one very serious concern related to the Jackson concept note issue but with far wider implications. Dr Panigrahi stated that he had raised a range of other proposals over time for eg for PhD studentships and ASSC funding which he felt should have been put forward and funded. He had often not received a response to explain why his ideas had not been taken up and was of the clear opinion that there was a process in place which was actively and specifically blocking funding proposals that he produced. The Institute and Departmental procedures for concept note production had changed and still seemed to be changing when it suited those responsible. Dr Panigrahi had no understanding of why such a widespread blocking of his proposals should be imposed by a range of colleagues, but he was convinced that this situation exists.’ What further action was taken by the University to this complaint?

8. What action was taken by the University against Dr Mathewman for his accusation of ‘false pretences’ against me?

9. Terms of my suspension from work pending disciplinary hearing. The University’s decision to deny me access to my research materials and to prevent me acting on several on-going research matters proved extremely damaging to my career and reputation as a scientist. I had worked extremely hard for over a decade to prepare the research material for my oral presentation at the 10th European Poultry Conference in Israel in June 1998 and the result of the suspension was that I could not attend the Conference. This would have been a distinctive feather in my cap in terms of international recognition for my work. The same applies to the invitation I received to speak at the 26th Poultry Symposium to be held in Peebles. My scientific paper on ‘mycoflora in stovers stored in Zimbabwe’ was highly commended by referees during first stage assessment as it broke new grounds in scientific approach and methodology and was the result of 6 years of painstaking research – the publication of the paper was therefore urgent. Similarly, my dissertation on ‘urbanisation and livestock development’ was the last item of study material required to secure my MSc with Distinction from the University of London. I was also required to write a reference for a colleague in ITDG-Zimbabwe to read for a course of study in Britain, which I was prevented from doing, thus harming my personal reputation and the career of a close colleague. I was also in the process of editing a dozen or so scientific papers from international scientists for the journal British Poultry Science, a work that was initially suspended. I was also due to attend the Annual General Meeting as a Director of the Company British Poultry Science Limited. These items of work could not have been under any circumstances considered as ‘disruption in the workplace’ that they should be suspended. Rather they could only enhance the reputation of the University of Greenwich. This has led to my conclusion that the University’s denial of my fundamental right to further my scientific work was a deliberate malicious attack on my career development and reputation consistent with other activities with respect to the ‘July Calls for Concept Notes’ incident, the denial of funds for WPSA presentation, and by Dr R. Matthewman’s libelous remarks of ‘false pretences’ made to me which the University did not investigate despite requests. On the other hand, the suspension of work appears to have been engineered to enable the completion of plagiarism of my research ideas on ‘Oilseed cake as stockfeeds in Zimbabwe (Project ZX0021) in similar manner to the ways in which my original proposals on the ‘effect of storage of stovers in Zimbabwe’ was plagiarised by other staff within Dr Blake’s Natural Resource Management Department, and the full raw data from dairy and poultry feeding trials designed by me under Project O0053 was systematically withheld from me by Professor Haines’ Food Security Department. These two Heads of Department appeared to have deliberately prevented my April 1997 Oilseed proposal and A0493 research work with Dr P. Golob from progressing. The suspension from work was timed to cover up these allegations of gross misconduct against other staff and raised the question of whether it was not a deliberate attempt to (a) destroy my recently negotiated contract, after nearly one year and a half of effort, with the Livestock Production Programme for DfID, and (b) prevent me presenting my 6 years of research and development experience on sunflowerseed oilcake (C0633, O0053, ZX0021) at the Wye Livestock Meeting on 21 May 1998. Preventing me attending that Meeting was a considerable attack on my reputation.

10. I was an Assistant Editor of the journal British Poultry Science based in Edinburgh. The manuscripts that I was responsible for were being messed about by the Editorial Office and referees who were not sending back the referees’ reports to me in time. Staff at the Editorial Office manipulated referees and authors not to cooperate with me from about July 1997 and especially during the summer of 1998. I wrote a letter dated 10 September 1998 to Dr Mieras, British Poultry Science Editorial Assistant critical of him, and in which I highlighted each one of my manuscript issues that the company must address and sent separate copies of the letter to Professor Sally Solomon, Dr J McNab and Dr G Perry but there was no response to the letter from anyone. The officials of the British Poultry Science were aware of my difficulties with my employer and joined in the campaign of criminal harassment to terminate my Assistant editorship for the journal. Hence this case is also brought against British Poultry Science as a co-defendant of the University of Greenwich.

CONCLUSION
1. In conclusion, my promising career at a young age was ruined and my international reputation as an agricultural scientist permanently damaged by the criminal harassment perpetrated on me by staff of the University and elsewhere, by my suspension from work (including my editorial work for the British Poultry Science journal), and by the unfair nature of disciplinary proceedings and termination of employment instituted against me by the University. It is suggested that this has been due to institutional racial discrimination at the University and beyond. The resulting damage to my career and reputation justifies financial compensation the amount of which is to be determined by the Court.

On 7 May 2006 I wrote a letter to the Medway County Court that I feel obliged to respond more fully to the 10 April 2006 letter from the Defendant’s Solicitor to the Court. With respect to the Court, although the 17 April 2001 dated Order of the Court stated that the Claimant’s statement of case be struck out as disclosing no reasonable grounds for claim and as being an abuse of the process of the Court, the judgement had not taken into account that this is primarily a Defamation Case arising from the written charges of ‘gross misconduct’ against me by the University of Greenwich. As such it is not an abuse of the process of the Court. I apologise that this was not made clear to the Court earlier but I did not attend the original Hearing nor was I represented due to personal circumstances. Although the 17 April 2001 Order required me to pay the Defendants £755 costs by 25 April 2001, it was agreed with the Defendants solicitor that I could pay gradually instead and I agreed to interest being added on to the original costs. I paid 3 instalments totalling £150 and have sent a further £150 on 5 May 2006. It is unfortunate that the Defendants Solicitors did not at any point remind me that I was falling behind with my payments. In this regard please note that I have explained to the Court in my letter dated 30 March 2005 that I require a Court Order to be made against the Department of Social Security to compel it to pay me the statutory sick pay and Incapacity Benefit backdated to 1998 so that I can meet these and other obligations. I hope this can be considered at the Hearing as part of this Case. I should also state that instituting a Civil Restraint Order against me will lead to the unjust disposal of these proceedings. I have fought a long battle for justice in ill health and without the aid of a solicitor because my original solicitor whom I had paid £1750 let me down. I have therefore had a great deal to learn about the workings of the Justice System and this has been done by written and verbal communications to various bodies, costing me a great deal of time and effort. I need to be able to follow up my Defamation Case against the University of Greenwich and the original statement of claim in ME010463 allows this Claim to proceed as one. I do not wish to start a new case as I have already paid £550 Court Fees, but if I need to submit a fresh N1 Claim Form please let me know as a matter of urgency. I look forward to hearing from you in early course.

When there was no reply to this letter from the Court on 3 June 2006 I wrote a further letter. I write further to my 7 May 2006-dated letter to the Court. I had sent my skeleton argument document for this Hearing of 3 May 2006 (of which the Court should have a copy) to the Defendant’s solicitor but there has been no reply to it so that many of the facts are still unclear. I have therefore revised my statement of Claim, as follows: The Claim in ME010463 is made firstly to sue for damages for defamation on account of the written statement by the University of Greenwich that I was blameworthy of such gross misconduct that I should be dismissed from service. On the other hand it was brought to the attention of the University that I was suffering from severe mental illness of a nature that my reactions to the harassment I was facing could appear to some as being peculiar. The harassment on me was perpetrated by a criminal conspiracy in the University and beyond to destroy my career and reputation and it stemmed from racial prejudice. Since other staff were being offered redundancy at about that time the disciplinary action was also the cause of the loss of my redundancy pay of over £55,000 which I am therefore claiming towards the damages. The University’s offer to pay me £20,000 was turned down by me as insufficient compensation. Secondly, the University did not act as it was required to do with regard to my sick leave application which has led to a considerable loss of income for me. Instead of dismissing me from my job it should have halted the disciplinary action and placed me on medical retirement which would have been on a salary of about £10,000 per year. I am therefore requesting a Court Order to compel the University to place me on medical retirement as I am still under the same medical treatment. Further, the University did not pay me my salary or sick pay for the month of October 1998. For this reason, as also the fact that my Notice of termination of employment should have commenced on the date that the University’s Disciplinary Appeal Panel finally met to consider this matter and not when the Disciplinary Panel decided to terminate my employment 3 months earlier, I am also claiming Wrongful Dismissal.

I sent the revised statement of Claim to Archon Solicitors, which replied on 7 June 2006 stating that we confirm that we did, indeed, receive your letter of 3 May 2006, which incorporated your draft skeleton argument. However, you will be aware from our letter to the Medway County Court of 10 April 2006 that we consider your application to set aside the judgment of 17 April 2001 to be frivolous and vexatious and wholly without merit, and that remains our position. In fact, when writing our letter of 10 April 2006, we omitted to mention the fact that you had already applied to have the judgment set aside, and that application was dismissed by the Court on 24 July 2001. In the circumstances, we would inform you that, at the hearing on 14 June 2006, we shall be making an application for an Order that you pay our client’s costs on the indemnity basis. This means that we shall be asking the Court to order that you pay all of our client’s costs incurred in relation to dealing with your application. We would therefore, strongly recommend that you seek legal advice before proceeding with your application. With regard to the points made in your skeleton argument and your letter of 3 June 2006, we would make the following points: 1. Your claim for alleged defamation by our client is hopelessly out of time. The present limitation period for bringing a defamation claim is one year from the date on which the alleged defamation occurred. Given that your complaint relates to matters that occurred in 1998, the Court has no jurisdiction to hear such a claim. Even if the relevant limitation period had not expired, any such defamation claim as you might seek to bring is wholly without merit and doomed to failure. 2. You refer in your letter to alleged ‘criminal conspiracy’ and race discrimination. Even if there was the slightest merit in such claims (which are completely unparticularlised), the County Court does not have jurisdiction to deal with such matters. 3. With regard to your sick leave application, again the Court has no jurisdiction to make the Order that you are seeking and, further, any such claims as you may have had are substantially out of time. In particular the time limit for bringing a wrongful dismissal claim expired in 2004, as did any claim you may have had for alleged non-payment of salary. Finally, we do not agree that payment of the outstanding costs should be suspended pending the outcome of your application. These costs have now been outstanding for some five years and, to date, we have received only £250 out of the £755 that you were ordered to pay. We would also remind you that the outstanding costs continue to attract interest at the rate of 8% per annum.

On receipt of this letter on 8 June 2006 and following a brief discussion with Rashmi explaining that we could lose the house if I allowed matters to progress further, I immediately telephoned Medway County Court and said that the matter had now been settled and I no longer wished to proceed with the above Hearing, confirming this with a faxed letter. I telephoned Archon Solicitors and sent them a copy of this Fax with the comment, ‘Further to my telephone conversation with you today, please note the contents of this letter.’ There were two meanings to the matter has now been settled, the second being that all the facts of the case were now out in the open in court proceedings so that there is nothing further to be gained from the Hearing or proceeding further. I did not wish to proceed further because ultimately it would boil down to a question of whether a judge would understand under what compulsion a jnana yogi worked as the nature of the mental disorder under which I had been reacting to the harassment faced in the University. When psychiatrists had found it difficult to pinpoint what was wrong with me what chance was there that a judge would understand my actions as being justified under British law? As this case showed a jnana yogi goes through the most dangerous manoevres in life in order to seek knowledge. And the knowledge I acquired showed that there is Almighty God in Sri Krishna and the purpose of living was to fight evil at every turn. Then He would come and assist that fight by helping one merge with the Divine Truth through adviata: Satyamev Jayate. Long live the Truth.

Nothing arrived in the post in the next two days and I wrote to Archon a further letter entitled: DEFAMATION AND WRONGFUL DISMISSAL: COSTS. I have still not received a written letter of apology from the University of Greenwich for its unjustified defamatory statement on me that I was blameworthy of gross misconduct. Further, please take note that this statement was given to me in a letter dated 15 July 1998 and my legal proceedings against the University commenced at the Employment Tribunal Service, Ashford, on 3 July 1999, that is within the 1 year time limit for Defamation Cases if we go by your stated time limit applicable for such proceedings. Similarly, the Case for Wrongful Dismissal was brought within the time limit of 2004. In this regard I cannot agree to being penalised in legal arguments and financially for the delays that were caused to my proceedings by tribunal and court staff at the Employment Tribunal Service, Employment Appeals Tribunal, The Royal Courts of Justice in Strand (London), Medway County Court, Lewes Appeal Centre, Hull County Court, Northampton County Court, Central London Civil Justice Centre, North Kent Magistrates Court, and the Old Bailey (London). It is also patently clear that Medway County Court rejected your letter of application dated 10 April 2006 and allowed my Application Notice dated 22 May 2005 to proceed further, proving that it saw merit in my Case. Further, my records indicate that I had paid you £300 (not £250 as stated in your letter of 7 June 2006) and a further cheque for £50 was sent to you on 8 June 2006. I require these payments to be refunded to me on the grounds that Medway County Court clearly saw merit in my Case. I also need you to pay me the totality of my legal costs in relation to these proceedings, and since I have been working on this case non-stop for 8 years, at the rate of my salary at that time of £30,000 pa, this amounts to £240,000.

Archon Solicitors wrote back on 13 June 2006 referring to the letters of 8 and 10 June 2006. With regard to the first letter, we note that you have written to the Court withdrawing your claim on the basis “that the matter has now been settled”. We are somewhat puzzled by your assertion that the matter has been settled, since no offer of settlement has been (or, indeed, will be) made by our client. We had assumed that you were simply withdrawing your claim, and we should be grateful if you would confirm your position. As to your letter of 10 June 2006 our client has no intention of issuing you with an apology in relation to the termination of your employment on the grounds of gross misconduct, as it considers that such decision was fully justified. As far as your alleged defamation claim is concerned, the Employment Tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear defamation claims and, had you wanted to bring such a claim, you would have had to bring it in the High Court within one year of the alleged defamation occurring. We reiterate that any such claim is now statute barred. Similarly, your alleged claim for wrongful dismissal would have had to have been brought in the Employment Tribunal within three months of the effective date of termination of your employment, or in the High Court or County Court within six years of the termination of your employment. As far as the Employment Tribunal is concerned, you will be aware that your claims were struck out. Your assertion that the Medway County Court allowed your application of 22 May 2005 to proceed and/or it “saw merit” in your claim is simply wrong. The hearing fixed for 14 June 2006 was intended to determine whether or not the judgment striking out your original claim in 2001 should be set aside. As you have withdrawn that application, the Court will not now determine whether or not there was any merit in it. You will, of course, be aware that we considered such application to be hopeless in any event. We confirm that we have now received a total of £350 from you in relation to the outstanding costs, and that we expect the balance to be paid. There is absolutely no question of our client refunding those costs, let alone paying any costs that you may have incurred. We put you on notice that, should you seek to resurrect your application to have the judgment set aside, we will apply to the Court to have the application dismissed and for an Order that you pay our client’s costs on the indemnity basis. As we indicated to you in our previous letter, we would strongly recommend that you seek professional legal advice before pursuing this matter any further.

I wrote back the same day not commenting on the specific issue of whether or not I had withdrawn my application or had merely stated that I no longer wished the matter to be dealt with in a Hearing: with reference to your letter dated 13 June 2006, thank you for your suggestion that I should seek professional legal advice. Unfortunately, I cannot do that because I am penniless. I am also unable to pay you any further sums of money. I had therefore put the onus back on the University to pursue the matter by taking out an Application to dismiss my Application Notice if it considered the matter still outstanding or to take enforcement proceedings to recover the remainder of the costs relating to the 17 April 2001-dated Court Order. This would determine whether the matter was settled or if it would proceed further in which case the conduct of the proceedings at Medway County Court would have to be analysed. In particular what did the Court mean by ‘the Court takes the view that the overriding objective would be best met by the current application being considered at a hearing’. Was it not to get me within its sights for referral to a different Court? I had succeeded in indentifying the two reasons (Defamation and Wrongful Dismissal) why my Case was not an abuse of the process of court but the Court could easily for some other reason raised at the Hearing reconfirm its earlier verdict and then punish me for repeating the abuse of the process of the court. I had been worried about these issues and my position as I drafted my letters to Archon and the Court and jumped at the opportunity to cancel the Hearing on the basis that the 7 June 2006 letter from Archon was adequate for me to settle on since all the facts were now in the open. I had achieved a kind of closure on the matter.

It was now clear to me that I had run into problems with my new employer, the University of Greenwich because it could not cope with my questioning attitude and harassed me because of it. Colleagues had ganged up against me and instead of meekly surrendering I found myself responding with further probes which the University did not like and so it put me through a disciplinary action. My tribunal and court proceedings also showed that there were limits to how the concept of justice according to natural law applied in the United Kingdom in civil proceedings. Pursuing a course of natural justice was futile as in my case it resulted in my Case being turned down at the Employment Tribunal and with me being initially judged to have abused the process of the Court at Medway County Court. My efforts to have this judgment reversed did not make much progress although I did manage to have all the relevant facts out in the open before pulling out of a Hearing because the signs for an outcome in my favour were not promising. Firstly, I had been unable to get a reply from the Court to my written queries particularly on my submission on co-defendants; secondly, I did not have knowledge of common law provisions to put counter arguments against the University’s well paid solicitor and barrister at any Hearing; and thirdly, I had no money left to fight on further. By withdrawing from the Hearing stating that the matter had been settled I had prevented another judgment as I did not wish to risk receiving another Court Order against me at this Hearing that could have been made on a technicality such as not meeting the appropriate time limits for bringing my Case to the County Court (in the same way as I had missed the time limits for the Employment Tribunal) and whether the case should have been lodged directly at the High Court instead of the County Court (or whether it was for the County Court to direct issues from this case to High Court and even the Magistrates Court). It was also clear that there might not be a specific law in the United Kingdom against criminal harassment by employers to be used by employees to bring their employer to justice for compensation, which is what I was seeking in addition to my claims for Defamation and Wrongful Dismissal. I could not take the chance of having my reputation further damaged by a Civil Restraint Order being made against me for continuing to pursue the University of Greenwich. So my quest for common law justice had to end there.

This experience shows that the three month time limits for cases to be brought before the Industrial Tribunal for Unfair Dismissal and Race Discrimination were too low, and this was also the case for Defamation cases (1 year) as there may be other more pressing related cases that one was engaged in. Why did a nation have such unrealistic time limits within which civil cases need to be brought to tribunals and court? Why did the County Court not have the jurisdiction to make the orders that I sought against the Department of Works and Pensions and against the University of Greenwich on my medical retirement? Why did the County Court not have jurisdiction to deal with criminal conspiracy and race discrimination? It was clear to me that natural justice was severely limited by the common law justice of the UK, which was built around the need to protect employers and to minimise the work load of courts in order to promote a high level of economic efficiency for the world domination that the nation sought.

I was tempted to write the following letter to Archon, but thought better of it in the end as Archon could have used any excuse to pursue the costs issue against me: I have not received the response of the University of Greenwich to my 14 June 2006 dated letter and since this is about the time of the month that you might be expecting money from me I am writing to confirm that I am unable to pay you any further sums of money. I also note that you objected to my stating to Medway County Court that ‘the matter has now been settled’. This is a statement that I arrived at on the basis of the fact that I had finally managed to write to the court explaining every detail that needed to be explained about my conduct so that the truth had surfaced in judicial proceedings for the publication of this matter, and equally, you had demonstrated from your letter of 7 June 2006 that you wish your client to avoid the central allegation of criminal harassment and hide behind timelimits for the issues of Wrongful Dismissal (which remains undefended) and Defamation (let me point out to you on this that when a copy of the 15 July 1998 letter is kept on a University of Greenwich file or files as I have reason to believe, the defamation is deemed to being perpetrated on each day that the letter remains on file which is available for consultation purposes – the Defamation case may therefore be activated at any time unless the letter is removed from file or a corrective letter is entered which I urge your client to do). From your responses you have also shown that your client has no reputation worth protecting and is primarily interested in making and saving money as it had also hidden behind the three-month time limit at the Industrial Tribunal whereas for me protecting my reputation and seeking the truth is more important than money. This is why I delayed my case to the Ashford Employment Tribunal to assess the World Poultry Science Association-UK Branch’s role in the harassment and to teach it a lesson. Knowledge of the true underlying situation is a sufficient reward for me to now state that the matter has been settled.

There had been some doubt in my mind as to whether Satyamev Jayate meant in my case that at the end of this battle I would win a substantial sum of money from the University and even get back my old job at the Natural Resources Institute. Of course, neither had happened, but Rashmi, Rupa and I were still together living in the same house and we were still eating and living well. And I had finally identified that the University had been guilty of Wrongful Dismissal and Defamation on the grounds of my mental condition, namely gyan yoga, which justified my responses (such as the BSAS letter) to the harassment that I had faced at the University. The University did not pursue the matter against me and so truth had survived. Satyamev Jayate may therefore be simply an expression to state that the pursuit of truth was an end in itself, and brought one closer to God.

On 6 April 2007 I wrote to The Vice Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, under ‘Medical Retirement’: I have received confirmation that I should return to medication in which case I should have been granted medical retirement from the University of Greenwich in 1998 when my employment was unfairly and wrongfully terminated. I would be grateful for your action on this immediately. There was no reply to the letter.

On 25 April 2007 I sent a Claim Form to Medway County Court for an Unspecified amount against the University of Greenwich, with the Brief details of Claim: Despite repeated submissions that I was suffering from a mental condition that would explain my conduct, the University of Greenwich has not considered the nature of this disorder and stopped my salary leading to a considerable loss of income for me. The matter of vexatious litigation has been referred to the High Court (at the Royal Courts of Justice, London). Under particulars of Claim I wrote: The University of Greenwich has consistently refused to accept the terms of my proposals to settle this dispute out of court.

Miss Joanna Hamer, Issue Section, Medway County Court wrote on 22 May 2007: Re: -v- ; Case No.: . Please find your letter enclosed, unfortunately I cannot find any details on our system under your surname. If you can provide any further details such as defendant’s name and address, if a cheque has been cashed and when, then I can certainly look into the matter further. If however no cheque has been cashed then you can always provide a further cheque and claim form for the Court to issue. I provided the Court with the information and documents requested.

I found the 29 August 2007 letter from Lisa Bridger of Medway County Court stating: Dear Dr Panigrahi, Re: Dr Shantanu Panigrahi -8- The University of Greenwich Case No: ME010463. In reply to your letter dated 3rd August 2007 which was referred to the District Judge for his consideration. The District Judge comments that if you wish to apply to reinstate your claim your application should be made on a N244 application form with a Court Fee of £65.00. I referred this letter to Kent Police Legal Services Department, Sutton Road, Maidstone, Kent ME15 9BZ, for consideration. On 5 September 2007, I submitted the N244 Application Notice to Medway County Court but upon its own motion District Judge Parnell struck it out as totally without merit and as an abuse of process.

 
My chronic mental illness of persistent delusional disorder

By 2003 Rashmi had become increasingly concerned about my behaviour. I had been spending a great deal of money sending Faxes and making telephone calls to organisations such as the courts and other parties. We frequently had arguments at home and I would not budge from what I was doing because I truly believed that I was working in accordance with God’s wishes. I swore at her calling her kutia (bitch), materialistic moron, and achut (untouchable) for breaking my concentration (dhyan).

During the early period I had deja vu like symptoms in almost everything I did, most importantly in the letters I wrote and I began believing that I was destined to fight out a major battle of reputation in this country. In my twenties while asleep at night I used to experience a sudden sucking up of my mental faculties as if I was entering a dangerous dark hole in the cosmos from which there would be no escape, and I had to shake myself to wake up to end this sensation; I may also have dreamt parts of the experiences of the current struggle during that time. I had even day dreamed that I would one day receive the Bharat Ratna from India for my work.

I had spent my childhood in the city of Allahabad, one of the holiest cities of India for Hindus; among sadhus taking part in Kumbha Mela. I had also then attended a Christian missionary school. I wore a necklace with the murti of Ganesh which was given to me by my step mother for the removal of obstacles in my life. These were surely the preparations that I needed for the major task that I was now faced with. I started studying numerous books on history and religion and especially the works of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. In particular Sri Aurobindo’s life was remarkably similar to what I was going through in that he fought the British tooth and nail. My eyes were attracted to the words jnana yoga in a publication one day as if some power was pointing to me that this is what I was. I also felt that the Almighty Divine had made an interjection in the affairs of men through me and I simply had to follow every line that I was being led into. Reading a line in Gooberz by Linda Goodman that I purchased for my sister Soumya, ‘Did you not see the Kent State coming’, I felt that this saga had been prophesied.

I had been led to believe that God is everywhere, in everything. Vishnu was the all pervading Immanent Universal Principle. Everything had therefore to be questioned and analysed. In particular I was drawn towards:

Yada Yada hi dharmasya glanirbhavati bharata
Abhyuthanamdharmasya tadatmanam srjamyaham
Parithranaya sadhuna vinashayaya cha dushtkrtam
Dharmasansthapnarthaya sambhawami yuge yuge

(Whenever virtue subsides and wickedness prevails I manifest myself. To establish virtue, to destroy evil, to save the good, I come from Yuga to Yuga)

My father had throughout our childhood chanted religious slokas to us, studied astrology in his spare time and read the Gita avidly right up to old age. He taught us Oriya religious songs (bhajans), a particular favourite of mine went something like, ‘Gyandata bhagabana, diyo mote subhobuddhi diyo dibbyo gyana, Satapathe, dharmapathe gheni jao, mote’ praying for wisdom, knowledge and truth path. My favourite film was Baiju Bawra excerpts of which I watched over and over again, singing the song, ‘Mana tarapata Hari darshan ko Aaj’ a devotional bhajan to Sri Krishna.

I had accidentally come across the book, Diagnosis of Man by Kenneth Walker (1943) in a second hand book shop and studied it thoroughly to consider whether I was a mystic to whom all the necessary books had been provided by the Almighty to develop my knowledge and understanding of God in order to learn of hitherto hidden secrets. ‘Krishnamurthy, the Years of Awakening’ by Mary Lutyens, ‘Sri Ram Charit Manas’, The Bhagavad Gita, and ‘Ramayan of Valmiki’ English translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith were other such books that I read avidly. Why else would these books have come to my possession by various means over the years if these were not for the divine purpose that I might now be engaged in, I wondered. I studied numerology from Linda Goodman’s ‘Star Signs’ and The Cheiro Book of Fate and Fortune and became convinced that the Divine spirit manifested Itself through the numbers 3, 6 and 9 and God Himself was represented by the number 7. An examination of my birthdate being the number 15 and the spelling of my name that came to a 3 and 9, or 3 in total merely added to the positive analyses. Such facts as the number of the house we lived in, being a 3 and before that a 96, were other elements that proved that I was a selected person to fight the British in a major battle. I associated the symbol Om with the number 3 and Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu as 6, 7 and 8 respectively, or an average of 7: Almighty God, Sri Krishna, 7, the personal God was the Trimurti Trinity, or all three Gods in one, and not an incarnation of Vishnu alone as Hindus believed. Love, creativity and truth came from Brahma whereas Vishnu was the Harmoniser and the Saviour; Shiva the Destroyer. Durga, the Shakti goddess, was the female Supreme Diety. All in all I became convinced that the universe was governed according to numerological principles with the divine being associated with the numbers 3, 6 and 9 and the evil one being 2, 4 and 8, with the number 5 being a channel of one-to-one communication with the spiritual world. The Absolute Reality or the Impersonal God, unknowable, was the Brahman.

My numerological theory gradually led to the practice of using clock times to check myself against each and every act that I was performing. If the digital clock showed 3, 6 or 9 it meant that I had to act in some particular way to thwart the courts and my opponents with whom I was waging a war. The next stage was to then identify precisely what needed to be done and this was determined by taking a written piece of an action to a clock when I did not know the time: if a positive number was indicated it was precisely the right thing to do with a negative number giving the opposite answer. I was in consultation with God who was an Infallible Power on the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s writings in ‘The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth’. Accordingly, not following the indications would have meant going against the wishes of God, so that there was no alternative for me. There were instantaneous rewards for the mind too, as the true situation was being revealed from each check and the darkest corners of my mind were being enlightened. Truth was liberating but it proved to be a mind-blowing exercise and soon enough I was suffering from a kind of tinnitus which lasted for at least a year. Such was the intensity of my search that I felt I had discovered the ultimate knowledge of how to be at one with God through advaita. This type of search became a way of life: it was a search for the truth with Truth being God, or the Ultimate Reality. I was practicising Brahmanism by merging with the Supreme Power.

I studied books like The Splendour that was Egypt, and Ancient Romans, and read about Ghengis Khan and his tribes, the Vikings, and Marco Polo’s travels to Kublai Khan’s China, Indian history, the slave trade and how shipping was developed by the Europeans to conquer and colonise the world. This greatly increased my general knowledge of history, which was being provided by the Almighty.

I used to pick up coins found in the street considering these to be ‘pennies from heaven’ messages. The other habit that I developed was in insurmountable urge to write everything down, from what was happening during telephone conversations with anyone to the purchases we were making in shops, what Rashmi was doing, what Rupa was doing, what the courts were up to, and what televison advertisements were being shown. Writing down was an expression of the truth as I was experiencing it, and was there for reference purposes as a guide to the truth later.

The state authorities had been engaged in harassing me as was evident from the hanging basket that was stolen from our house in the summer of 1999. When I purchased a computer from the Dell Company it came without the AOL internet connection to stop me from sending emails and with hidden messages on the hard disk such as the names of a former colleague (Danny Romney) and our neighbours in Didcot to show that the company was manipulated to harass me. The Strachan School of Motoring used to pop up outside our house from time to time as if sent by the Scottish brigade with whom I had fought to annoy me.

Many of the televison advertisements were, I saw, the result of manipulation of the companies to persecute me, in particular the Sun Life AXA Life Insurance and Cornhill Senior Security Plan advertisements which were veiled threats to my life. The White Stuff: Are You Made of It’ milk advertisements were racist in nature, to convey to me that this society was meant for only white people. British Gas advertisements were similarly meaningful in that they conveyed some message to me; P and O Ferries advertisements were designed to intimidate me into going for asylum in France and ROC we keep our promises advertisement gave the impression that I will be put into prison soon. British Gas was harassing me with its service too and so were other companies like Budweiser with its ‘True’ advertisements. It had led me to writing a letter to British Gas full of inuendo on 30 September 1999. I had shifted our electricity supply from Seaboard Energy to British Gas because Seaboard Energy was harassing me with Televison Advertisements. I wrote: PAYMENT AREA 15 CLUB REPORTS: ENERGY BILL, METERS AND CENTRAL HEATING SERVICE CONTRACT As a loyal member of the Payment Area 15 Gas Consumer Club I am hereby reporting ‘total satisfaction’ to Head Quarters for having transferred our electricity supply to British Gas earlier this year and resisting Temptations to move our gas supply to cheaper Opposition attempting Takeover Bids. Sir, I considered us to be duty-bound to strengthen the Club by lumping together as many household activities under the British Gas Roof having regard for British Gases networking arrangement particularly with Sainsbury’s own loyalty Reward Club membership. I lookout for your next Newsletter for details of High Command’s other networking arrangements particularly concerning Transport, so that the Club goes from strength to strength and we can all retire at younger ages from active employment because of the rewards High Command brings the troops. Bravo Sir, we sing ‘songs of praises’ for you once again as British Gas rises like a Phoenix from a punctured balloon that it had become. So from the home front of operations I am happy to report to High Command that the recent changeover made no difference to the quality of energy supply nor of consumption but the streamlining involved did improve operational efficiency. And it will be remiss of the Club not to congratulate itself for recognising that the saga was to provide all with a heaven-sent opportunity to study the long-forgotten civil service mechanisms of the various components of British Gas Works globally (and in considerable detail too if I may add) as we turn the Millennium and ponder on the implications of this real-life elucidation of our ‘New World Order’ Establishment. May we therefore be pardoned Sir at Payment Area 15 for our present Club exuberance in admiring your continued conglomerational success and for the troops to take liberty (briefly only Sir!) to salute High Command unsolicited for its aspirations to becoming the No 1 International Gas Production Company. At this end of the Chain of Command and like a True Blue Brit Leo I promise to move Heaven and Earth for the total domination of British Gas: long live the Union, Sir – here is my Ode to commemorate this monumental effort:
Marching upwards and onwards – as a Parcel Force we ply
Airing Waves Concordant; sending lawmen awry
Expending more-on troops; with ‘Union Jacks’ high
Dispensing millions to ‘Tally ho’ – the Huntsperson’s cry

I related an article in the Daily Express entitled, ‘Sorry for the Delay’ as being expressed from the Prime Ministers office and this was a proof that Mr Tony Blair was aware of my plight and was promising to do something about it behind the scenes. I wrote everything down to the point that I developed repetitive stress disorder in my right wrist. Rashmi saw both my behaviour of telephoning and sending letters and of writing my experiences, for I could not hide these from her, and she complained to my father in Kolkata about it. Money was draining away at the same time. We had savings of nearly £20,000 at one point and this long struggle with the courts without any Social Security Benefits coming in took our savings down to zero where Rashmi had to borrow money to make ends meet.

At times I felt that I was living in the land of demons (rakshases) much as Ram found Himself facing in Lanka. Each one of their troops had to be engaged with and countered as I had done while still at the University of Greenwich. Rashmi did not know what I was doing of course but my endless phone calls and Faxes drove her to such a point that she saw my General Practitioner Dr Sudhir Patel to have me committed to hospital to assess and cure my mental illness as she saw it. She had warned me that hospital staff were coming to get me on 23 March 2004. I felt that she had been plotting against me behind my back with Dr Patel to have me institutionalised. For this reason I had to escape and so on the morning of the day of their arrival I did all the normal clock time checks and came to the conclusion that the Almighty wanted me to leave the house and head for Dover with a view to going to France under my asylum application to that country. My old passport had been returned to me with the cover edges cut but I had not yet been sent a new one which I took as continued persecution by the state. I decided I had to try and use the old passport to go away, except that my clock checks had revealed that I would not be actually getting on a boat to France that day. I was merely to have the passport renewal issue raised as a query at Dover Docks and pursue the matter of asylum in France.

I took the train to Dover with a few belongings and arrived there early afternoon. I explained to the Dover authorities that I had a letter from the French Refugee organisation (OFPRA) to effect my asylum in France. However the Dover Police in charge insisted that my passport was not valid to travel on. I hung around the Docks for 15 minutes and the man came up and started quizzing me. I gave my wife’s name and home telephone number to him. He telephoned and spoke to my wife and got to know the full picture of the visitors that were to come and assess my mental condition. The next thing that happened was that I was bundled into the back of a police van and taken to the Scarboro Ward of the Arundel Unit of William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, Kent, where I was assessed by 2 doctors, to whom I talked about Brahmanism. I was detained under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. That day I was given Haloperidol and Olanzapine medication by force. Prompted by another patient who gave me details of the Mental Health Review Tribunal I applied for it immediately as I was angry at being detained. On 24 March 2004 I wrote to the Hospital that I have appealed against my unlawful detention there and did not accept any treatment at the hospital. I wish the Mental Health Review Tribunal to be instituted immediately for recommendations on how this matter must proceed.

Within a couple of days I was transferred (not on my request) to the Shelley Ward of Medway Maritime Hospital under Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Isaac Sundeep, so that I could be close to my family. I absconded twice from the Ward and came home only for the police to be sent to return me to the Ward, once under handcuffs. I did not cooperate with the hospital authorities in the diagnosis of my mental state nor in taking any medication and stated that I was a political detainee. I went on a hunger strike which however lasted barely half a day. Throughout the period of my stay I was maintaining a minute by minute diary. At that point, due to my non-compliance with medication and risk of absconding from the ward the authorities decided to put me in a secure ward and I was transferred to the Willow Suite of Littlebrook Hospital, Bow Arrow Lane, in Dartford. There I was forced on to medication sometimes through injection by force. I was under the charge of a male Indian doctor Professor Mathews and his assistant Dr Yogendran, a female Indian doctor. They wanted to give me electroconvulsive therapy presumably because they suspected schizophrenia but Rashmi did not give them the permission to do this. (My elder brother suffered from chronic schizophrenia since his late teens and had received electroconvulsive therapy in India).

The Mental Health Review Tribunal met on 6 April 2004, for which I had a solicitor appointed in the person of Ms Anna Turnbull-Walker to represent me. She did not attend the Hearing which was therefore adjourned. The written report of the President of the Tribunal stated that ‘the legal and medical members went to the Ward to explain this to the patient. He refused to stop writing a verbatim account of events and refused to listen to the explanation. A nurse was called upon to witness what took place and to attempt to explain to the patient later. The patient became extremely aroused and angry and made reference to clear delusional beliefs that the tribunal members were part of a conspiracy against him by the British Government.’ On 7th April 2004 I received a letter that I was now being detained in accordance with Section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983 which allowed the Hospital to detain me for up to 6 months. I applied for another Mental Health Review Tribunal and a Hearing was arranged for 14 April 2004. I wrote to the Charge Nurse that Ms Anna Turnbull Walker should receive up to 1500 documents from 3 Hoath Lane, Wigmore, Nr Gillingham, for the purposes of the Tribunal.

When the hospital authorities mentioned something about Rashmi, I responded by saying that I was going to divorce her (in view of her harassment of me at home and for arranging behind my back to get me hospitalised for a mental illness) but it was a tactical statement to protect our interests at the time, as I was fighting the enemy, the British State. I spent my time playing pool and scrabble with other patients and the nurses. I took care of my personal hygiene and ironed my clothes because I considered that personal cleanliness was a prerequisite to meeting God. On 10th April I telephoned the Royal Courts of Justice and spoke to the Duty Judge’s assistant Mr Sherwood asking for a court injunction to stop the staff from injecting drugs into me. On 12 April 2004 I wrote to the Hospital Managers asking the grounds on which I was being detained in Little Brook Hospital following the period of observation that commenced on 23 March 2004, and on 14 April I applied to the Hospital Managers to let me leave hospital. A medical report was produced in which I was reported to be ‘acutely psychotic with paranoid and persecutory ideation and elective mutism’. Further, ‘on assessment of his mental state on 5 April 2004 he stated that he was brought to Willow Suite due to a conspiracy from No 10 Downing Street and Tony Blair. He believes that it is an attempt to silence him because he has written to several international bodies to express his dissatisfaction over the way that Muslims have been treated. He further described how television programmes had made reference to him and how when he saw an advert on the television for Andrex toilet tissue he knew that it meant that Prince Andrew was involved in his affairs. Under recommendations it stated that Mr Panigrahi is currently acutely psychotic with well systematised persecutory and paranoid delusions. In addition he has ideas of reference and delusional perception. He does not have insight into his illness, he does not think that he is mentally unwell and has so far refused oral medication. Considering his non-compliance with medication so far, and his lack of insight into his illness, it is unlikely that he will comply with medication or with in-patient treatment if he is an informal patient. He is currently being detained in the interests of his own health. We therefore recommend a further period of detention under the Mental Health Act 1983. On the basis of this report the Tribunal decided not to discharge me from Section. It stated that ‘despite explanations, the patient was confused about the nature of the hearing. Throughout the hearing the patient queried Ms Turnbull Walker’s competence and he asked for leave of absence from hospital to go to the High Street to appoint a solicitor of his own choice. He wanted legal representation but did not accept that a solicitor on the panel could represent his interests. The patient’s evidence was that he is being systematically persecuted by the British government and that the tribunal hearing was itself part of that conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He said that the Tribunal was unlawfully convened as the members had changed since the last hearing. We concluded from his evidence that, as stated by his clinical team, the patient is suffering from mental illness and in urgent need of medical treatment. The patient clearly had no insight into his condition and, as he is non-compliant with medication in hospital, treatment could not be provided otherwise than in a hospital setting, for the present under detention under the Mental Health Act 1983. We accepted the medical evidence that without treatment the patient’s health would deteriorate and his safety would be at risk. When notified of the tribunal’s decision the patient said that he did not accept it as this tribunal is unlawfully convened and he wanted access to a High Street solicitor. The tribunal was satisfied that throughout the hearing the solicitor representing the patient’s interests had done so competently’.

I had gone into elective mutism mode when it suited me in order to protect my interests for I knew that anything I said could be written down and held against me as evidence of severe mental illness. An appointment was made for me to undergo a CT Brain scan and to take a blood test. I refused to take part in those tests for I still considered myself unlawfully detained by the State and I wished to preserve my mind and health as God-given. There was still the Hospital Managers Appeal to take place, and I asked Professor Mathew for a copy of his report on me. On 7 May 2004 I wrote to Mr Mark Amos Deputy Ward Manager that they have discriminated against me on racial grounds in releasing other patients ahead of me from Willow Suite Hospital, citing the cases of two patients Mr John Ashdown and Mr Paul Maynard as evidence. Reluctantly, I started taking the medication voluntarily for they would have injected it into me otherwise. Soon afterwards there was talk that I would be discharged from Willow Suite or be sent back to the open ward of Shelley Ward, and a Care Plan was worked out accordingly. I wrote saying that I was therefore cancelling my request for a Manager’s Appeal listed for a hearing on 20 May 2004. On 26 May 2004 I received a letter stating that an Order of Discharge dated 26 May 2004 was received by the Managers of this Hospital removing the authority for detention under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983, and that I was now classed as an informal patient. I signed a statement that I agreed to remain in the Willow Suite as an informal patient until a bed is found for me in the open ward. On 27 May 2004 Rashmi came to the hospital and drove me home.

On 28 May 2004 I wrote to the Mental Health Review Tribunal asking it to clarify the restrictions that I was subject to in writing. No reply came. On 2nd June 2004, with Rashmi’s encouragement, I went into Shelley Ward of Medway Maritime Hospital. A disagreement developed as to whether I could go home whenever I wanted to and I was promptly placed back under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act by Shelly Ward. I appealed to the Hospital Managers against my detention. A Hearing was held and Ms Natasha Spreadborough, a colleague of Ms Anna Turnbull Walker, attended on her behalf and argued my case. The result was that I was discharged from Section 3 on 25 June 2004. On 28 June 2005 I was finally allowed to go home after receiving a depot injection. I could not wait for this day as the nightmare was finally over but I was to remain an outpatient.

Ms Janine Hudson a Mental Health Social Worker had been appointed as my Care officer under the Care Plan and she visited me at home and looked set to be making a habit of it. I quickly disposed off her services and made myself solely an outpatient of Dr Sundeep at Kingsley House, Balmoral Road, Gillingham, Kent. I applied for and received Disablilty Living Allowance of £31.10 per week. Dr Sundeep left the service and for a brief period a temporary Consultant came to take his place. Then a Dr B. Irala was appointed.

Soon after my return home from hospital I was seeking employment but could only get menial jobs. I had a better job offer from Kent Police for the role of Public Enquiry Officer but Dr Irala had been requested to write a medical report on me by Kent Police. With only one appointment with him, his report was naturally based almost entirely on the contents of his file on me. His report is as follows.

Personal history:
Born in India from a normal delivery. His development and milestones were normal. His childhood was uneventful. He attended primary school in India. He finished high school in India and took 5 O level and 3 A level examinations. He went to University to study Agricultural Science. However, he gave up his studies after 8 months. He worked as a scientist for 18 years and his employer was the University of Greenwich. However, he was made redundant in March 1988 because of a disciplinary reason and court proceedings are still in progress. He took his employer to court. In 2002 he started applying for asylum in many countries.

He got married 20 years ago and has a daughter. He describes his relationship with his family as supportive.

Family history:
Mr Panigrahi’s mother suffered from a long standing, psychotic illness characterised by delusional belief, she believed she had Tuberculosis, despite no medical evidence. She committed suicide to prevent her children from being infected.

Mr Panigrahi has 1 brother and 2 sisters. His brother is suffering from schizophrenia and is undergoing treatment in India.

Drug and Alcohol history:
He denied using illicit drugs but there is a history of Cannabis, 3 or 4 joints in 1982. He drinks alcohol occasionally and he stopped smoking 15 years ago.

Past Psychiatric History:
Apparently he was well up until 9 years ago when he started having recurrent arguments with his colleagues and bosses. He was dismissed from his job as a scientist. At that time he consulted a psychiatrist privately. He was diagnosed as suffering from depression and was prescribed Sertraline, then St John’s Wort. This he took for a few months then stopped. During this time he sued his previous employer and has been harbouring a fixed belief that the British Government is against him. He believed that there was an administrative ploy to harass him and eventually eliminate him. He continuously contacted the judiciary to protect him and his family. He misconstrued innocent events as evidence of plot.

His wife denies any threat ever existed. To avoid this pursuit, threat and harassment he has been applying for Political Asylum in various countries, but so far has been rejected. He believes the rejection is due to British influence on international politics. He was trying to escape to France but was arrested because of his expired passport.

Present Mental Health:
On 23 March 2004, Mr Panigrahi was detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, at Dover Docks when he attempted to travel to France to apply for asylum there on an expired passport. He was admitted to William Harvey Hospital, Ashford under Section 2 of the MHA 1983. He was later transferred to Medway Maritime Hospital.

At that time he believed the government was against him and making it difficult for him to live here. As a result of receiving a stained letter he believed that the government had targeted him for assassination and that the British government and the police were persecuting him. During his admission to Medway Hospital he absconded twice, and was brought back by the police. He also went on hunger strike in protest at being detained in hospital. He referred to himself as a political detainee and recorded all conversations he had and any comments addressed to him by the staff. He was also intimidating towards the staff, verbally abusive and threatening. This combined with non-compliance with medication, and absconding risk resulted in him being transferred to a secure psychiatric unit. During his admission to the Willow Suite, he remained non-cooperative. He refused to attend the ward round review on 1 April 2004, stating he was a political detainee and refusing contact with staff stating that any medication given could be a way to kill him. During further attempts to assess his mental health staff could not formally hold him. He would not speak and there was no eye contact. He documented all that was said to him. He refused prescribed medication for 4 days and when asked to have a routine blood test stated that this was continuation of attempted murder and he was recording everything to present to Northampton County Court.

5 April 2004, he said he had been brought to the Willow Suite because of a conspiracy from 10 Downing Street and Tony Blair. They were trying to silence him because he has information regarding the way Muslims are treated. He believed that television programmes made reference to him and that Prince Andrew was involved in his affairs.

After 4 days he was willing to take Olanzapine.

On the sixth week of his admission to the Willow Suite he began to show some improvement and slowly gained insight. Eventually he was transferred to Shelley Ward, Medway Maritime Hospital. Again his medication was reviewed. He responded well to treatment and was later encouraged to go on leave. His leave went well and he was finally discharged from the ward. Following his discharge from hospital he was followed up in the Out patient clinic and he maintains regular contact. He showed continuous improvement from his psychotic episode and was compliant with his medication.
During his last review his mental state was euthymic mood and reactive affect. His speech was normal in rate, rhythm and volume, spontaneous and coherent. He denied any active thoughts and delusions. He denied any abnormal perceptions. He was well oriented to time, place and person. He had gained insight into his illness and accepted that whatever happened in the past could have been a false belief and there was no plotting against him. He has realised his mistakes and his judgement was clear.

Diagnosis:
ICD 10 – F22.0 — Persistent Delusional Disorder

Prognosis:
In my opinion Mr Panigrahi has been suffering from Persistent Delusional Disorder for a period of approximately 9 years. Although he suffers from a psychiatric illness which requires long term medication, he has shown remarkable recovery from his last episode of a psychotic break down and has maintained improvement for one and half years and is compliant with his medication. His prognosis is variable subject to his involvement in his care plan and it is difficult to predict his response when he takes on a regular, responsible job, as he has been off work for a long time and is currently doing a part time job. However, he seems quite interested in returning to work, which definitely has therapeutic benefits. He is likely to maintain his normal mental state if he continues with the present medication and accepts input from the secondary mental health services.

Kent Police withdrew the offer of the job as Public Enquiry Officer after reading this report. I wrote back to Dr Irala copied to Kent Police as follows: I received a copy of the Medical Report you wrote on me which has directly led to the withdrawal of the job offer made to me by Kent Police. In this letter therefore I wish to draw your attention to inaccuracies in your report so that you may amend these should another request be received by you in the job search that I have undertaken. Most importantly I should stress that in 1998 the diagnosis of Dr Rao (Consultant Psychiatrist at BUPA Hospital) whom I saw on my request was ‘Severe Depression with Psychotic Features’. I believe in his diagnosis. I am surprised that you do not have this in your records. I did not give up my University studies. I went to University of London and completed my BSc in Pharmacology in 1978 with an Upper Second Class Honours degree which, incidentally, should give you an idea that I have some knowledge of medicine. I completed my PhD from Reading University in 1988. Much later I studied Agricultural Science as a MSc and completed 6 out of 7 course units, the 7th unit being a dissertation that I have witheld from Wye College because it was one of the organisations involved in the harassment that I suffered in the University of Greenwich prior to my dismissal under the false charges of gross misconduct. Medway County Court is not proceeding with my case against the University of Greenwich, according to the latest information that I have: I consider this to be most unfair but there is nothing I can do. I consider my detention under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act to have been due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with Dover Dock’s Police. However, please note that against the wishes of the Consultant Psychiatrist, the Hospital Managers released me from the Section 3 that had later been imposed by Willow Suite and Medway Hospital.

Dr Irala replied that although you think that detention of you under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act was an unfortunate misunderstanding with Dover Dock’s Police, I would like you to know that detaining somebody under the Mental Health Act requires two doctors, one of which should be a Section 12 Mental Health Act approved doctor, to agree on that day that, that individual suffered from mental illness of a nature or degree which makes it appropriate for medical treatment in a hospital under detention in the interest of patients own health and safety and also relies on an Approved Social Worker to make an application to detain that individual under the Mental Health Act which was done in your case on that day. As per the Hospital Manager’s releasing you from Section 3 Mental Health Act even against the wishes of the Consultant Psychiatrist, it only means that on that particular day you were not in a position which required further detention and does not make your detention under the Mental Health Act in the first instance an unfortunate misunderstanding.

I wrote back, prompted by Rashmi: Thank you for your letter dated 24 October 2005. I am sorry for questioning your judgement and views but please try to understand that my job offer was withdrawn as a direct result of your report and that was deeply upsetting for me as I had already passed the interview and was looking forward to resuming normal life. You are involved in my case and I have every trust that you want me to be normal. You said yourself that most of your patients are in employment. Yet my case is completely different. After one and half years of non-stop search for work, I have found a part-time job as a cleaner. The job with Kent Police was my last hope of a decent job and that has been snatched away after their Medical Officer went through your report and decided that the nature of the job will make my illness return. The role of a Public Enquiry Officer requires me to deal with public enquiries in person and by writing. I do not see how this is going to make me ill. I would be grateful if you could let me know what your views are. If you agree with him I will then resign to a life of inactivity rather than hoping for a normal life with a purpose. You may wish to copy your letter to Dr P Paciorek, Occupational Physician, Kent Police, which will help them with my appeal for reconsideration. You have said that having a job will be therapeutic and I strongly agree with this. Dr Htike of Shelley Ward told my wife that the prognosis for a person in my condition (whose illness was due to a major upsetting event such as job loss, and who is above 40 years of age and has family support) is always good and the way I feel now only accentuates his view.

Dr Irala replied that he had given his report and his opinion to Kent Police and there is nothing more he could add in this regard. I wrote the the Head of West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust that following recent correspondence culminating in Dr B Irala’s 1 November 2005 dated letter to me it is clear that Dr Irala is not sympathetic towards me and does not have my best interests at heart to be able to continue to serve as my Consultant Psychiatrist. As such I require a change of my psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was changed but it was not clear to me if this was as the result of my request or merely due to a reorganisation of the medical centre.

This episode of Spring 2004 put a question mark over my own assessment of my mental state of mind. Was I truly suffering severe mental illness of the delusional kind all along? I was expecting that things will be resolved through the courts in my favour eventually but this had not happened. Instead I suffered on and on. For this reason I started testing whether the clocks were still to be relied upon for guidance on what action I should be taking and I soon found out that this method was not reliable. However, I also considered that this may have been due there being nothing further left to be done with the courts. Anyhow I gradually gave up using this method of checking in order to get some direct control over events. My younger sister had been sending me emails about dharma in her own fight to recover some of her financial inheritance from our father who passed away in December 2004. I wrote to her of my experiences and questioned: Is having faith in God that He can play an intricate part in one’s personal life if only one found a way of invoking Him, the ultimate delusion? I am keeping an open mind while the psychiatrist continues to treat me with medication with Rashmi insisting that I keep up with the medication (4 mg of Risperidone each day with the occasional break). Taking ones medicines and opportunities as they come, that is, to go with the flow, is part of that faith which I am holding on to. The questions on duty, swadharma and swakarma and swabhava that you mention are from the Gita, are naturally part of that quest but the ultimate question must remain whether God can play an interactive part in the life of an individual. If the answer is yes, what are the attributes required of the ‘jiva’ to be able to invoke such an interaction. If the answer is no, then the psychiatrists are not only right in their diagnosis, also we humans are left with nothing better to fall back on to guide us in life than to work mechanically according to the principles of karma and hope for the best outcome for one’s efforts in this life and in the afterlife. Where did this leave me with the theory of having been selected to wage a war with God’s blessing to fight for my reputation in the UK, I questioned.

Rehabilitation from mental illness
Soon after my return from hospital I put it to Rashmi that we would need to downsize to a smaller house, to release some of the capital in our house (about £40,000) and to pay off the mortgage if we were to survive economically in this country. She agreed to the proposal initially and we placed our house on the market, receiving various offers, and we searched for another house, finding one that Rashmi agreed to buy. But she changed her mind and decided that she did not wish to sell our house after all. She said that the house was the only thing of pride left for her and she wished to hold on to it to see how things would shape up. I also did not put any pressure on her to sell the house and we abandoned the house move. However, from now day-to-day household expenditure would have to be reduced even more and we spent the bare minimum in order to cope with the financial pressure. I personally hardly spent anything on myself.

Between 2004 and 2006 I spent much time applying for jobs and this proved extremely difficult. I must have applied for over 200 jobs and the number of successes could be counted in the finger of ones hand. I applied for scientific jobs at the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Food Standards Agency to menial jobs like kitchen assistant, and for numerous jobs with Kent County Council only two of which I was selected for interview. I found a job as a Cover Supervisor at the Robert Napier School but this turned out to be a temporary post lasting 3 months. I worked for a Recruitment Agency for a few months but could not get sufficient work, and further, found the menial work too hard to continue with. I had a part time job as a cleaner at Total Britannia Service Station in Rainham, working 10 hours a week. Rashmi was particularly upset at my losing the job offer made by Kent Police. I wrote off a letter to Kent Police: Thank you for your letter to me dated 23 August 2005 conveying to me the disappointing news that I was unsuccessful in obtaining all the necessary clearances required to undertake the role of Public Enquiry Officer. However, since the Police Service must fundamentally believe in fairness in its dealings with the public I am writing to you immediately to express my concern that justice has not been adequately served on this occasion. Accordingly, I wish to find out which of the three categories of security, financial and medical have I failed in, in order that I may be able to submit further clarification in my defence. In particular if my dealings with Medway County Court has been of concern please confirm this so that I can explain to you how that court’s officials have persecuted me in order to protect the state’s educated criminals from being brought to a Trial. As you are aware I am entitled to a copy of the Consultant’s medical report that you requested from him, so please send me a copy by return post. Rashmi wrote a separate letter copied to the Chief Constable of Kent: Dear Ms Beaumont. I feel compelled to write this after seeing my husband’s anguish and disappointment over the withdrawal of his once successful application. You interviewed him on 9th May and rang him the same day with the good news that he has been successful at the interview. You even went on to compliment him on the way he conducted himself at the interview and also said how impressed you were with his qualification. This news was so refreshing to all of us. He waited patiently for three long months for the health and security clearance to come through and was positive of a bright and satisfying career with Kent Police. You can imagine his disappointment at the letter of rejection he received from you dated 23 August informing that he did not pass the medical, security or financial clearance. We are wondering if he failed on one or more categories (he has already written to you about this). We all are of course very puzzled and share his disappointment as it affects us all as a family. Firstly we know that Shantanu cannot be a security threat as he is the son of a Indian diplomat who came to the United Kingdom to work in the Kew Gardens as a scientist and I (his wife) am a civil servant working for the Ministry of Defence. Secondly, we are stable and secure financially with a £275,000 property and my permanent full time employment with the Ministry of Defence. So the only reason we can think of is Shantanu’s medical history. I would take the liberty of explaining his real state of mind as I see it (we have been married for 20 years). Shantanu suffered a mental breakdown after losing his job as a Principal Scientist at the University of Greenwich. He was never violent, ill mannered or destructive during the 8 years of instability in his mental state and this is one of the reasons why I did not seek medical help. Eventually, we sought help as we felt that he was wasting his talent and capabilities by sitting at home, trying to win back his job which was once his life. He was hospitalised and treated for delusion and depression by a kind and understanding doctor in Spring/Summer 04 and returned home in a stable frame of mind and a renewed vigour to start life again. Unfortunately, mental illness is stigmatised and no one is willing to offer him a suitable job. He is possibly the only scientist with a Dr title who works as a cleaner! Such is the unfairness of society. Kent Police is an equal opportunity employer and is positive about disability and by offering Shantanu a job you proved your maxim. Why then was his application withdrawn after 3 months and 14 days? Whatever he did in his unstable state of mind can surely be ignored. You selected him at the interview so he must have done something to impress you. His medical condition was declared in the application form so you were fully aware of this when you interviewed him. In this dismissive, self-centred and uncaring society one cannot even rely on his family doctor for a correct report (our GP sent an erroneous report to your Head Office which had to be challenged and corrected). How can a major decision be taken solely on the basis of information that are passed on to you from various sources who have no idea what the reality is. We are of course aware that as an employer, your decision is final but having passed the most difficult hurdle of the interview, Shantanu can surely ask for the reason behind your decision that affects his and our life. At 48, Shantanu is too young to retire into a life of inaction and purposelessness. It is possible that you have employed someone else for the post Shantanu was originally chosen for, but I feel much better explaining my version of the story and I do hope in future applicants have a chance to have their own say. I felt able to write this as you are the Police and I regard your organisation as someone who is fair and caring to the public. Thank you for your patience in reading this.

We wrote a follow up letter of complaint to Mr Mike Fuller, the Chief Constable: My wife wrote to you on 30 August 2005 concerning the withdrawal of the Public Enquiry Officer’s post offered to me following a successful interview. Mr Allyn Thomas, Assistant Chief Constable, replied to the letter on your behalf saying that the decision to withdraw my job offer was based on my medical history. I have suffered from a mental disorder since 2003 after losing my job as a scientist at the University of Greenwich. I do understand that you have a stringent policy on recruitment that you have to adhere to. But you also state categorically that you are positive about disability in your recruitment policy. My illness is now a thing of the past and with effective medication I am now living a normal life. The most natural thing for me now is to find employment to fill my days with a purpose, integrate with members of the society and not rely solely on my wife’s income to subsist on. Kent Police (Medway Area) gave me the opportunity to live with dignity by short listing, interviewing and selecting me for the post of a Public Enquiry Officer. But after 4 months, the offer was withdrawn abruptly. The Forces Doctor took the decision that working as a Public Relation Officer will make my illness return. This came as a severe blow at a time when I was looking forward to a happy and successful career with Kent Police. I have a brilliant record as a scientist working for the Overseas Development Administration and had 2 promotions in my 18 years of scientific career and was even head hunted for the post of Head of Aquaculture at the Institute of Aquaculture, Stirling. With the privatisation of the ODA unit in which I worked I was forced to quit my job and this together with the failure of successive tribunal and courts to take action against my employers resulted in my mental breakdown. I was 42 years old when I left the job. Temporary illness has not affected my brain and I am extremely sharp. All my creative energy is now spent in educating our 15 year old daughter who is continuing to do well at school. I am a valued and much loved member of our family. The Consultant I see is new in post and has based his report on historical data from his file. Nonetheless, the Consultant has said to me that 98 per cent of his patients are in full time work. I am wondering how this is possible? If the Force’s doctor is right then these mentally ill patients should be sitting at home and not working. Ms Elaine Beautridge continues to be sympathetic and is the person who has seen me, interviewed me and selected me for the post, whereas the doctor has decided on my suitability by reading a report that is inaccurate as it is based on answers provided by myself and on my conduct when I was at an all time low and suffering a breakdown. How just is this? I was told that there was an appeal process in progress but it seems this has simply rubber stamped the earlier decision to withdraw the job offer on grounds that the job will make me ill again. There is no evidence for this. Although not an accurate report, the psychiatrist summarizes his view on a positive note saying that work will be therapeutic for me. However, the Forces Doctor has his own view and Mr Allyn Thomas says that the case is very clear cut. No case is clear cut in the realm of mental health. The recent story of the Piano Man fooling a team of top psychiatrists to think that he was ill is a good proof of this. Only myself and my family know how well I feel and how ready I am for a job. And I have proved my suitability by passing the interview. The glimmer of hope that made me happy for 4 months is now gone and I fear that I may begin to lose my faith in the goodness of people as a whole. It would be better for you to have rejected the application in the first instance than offering me the job and then withdrawing it. Now we are back to square one and this time I have lost faith in society, people and the whole system that is in operation. A family friend who works at a Mental Health Unit says that they have people from all walks of life on their Outpatients register. How is this possible? What do these people have that I lack? Am I to assume that Kent Police are intolerant of mental illness?

There was no reply from Kent Police to this letter.

I then had an interview with Kent County Council for the post of Kent Community Warden but it was unsuccessful. I appeared in a Prison Officer Recruitment Selection Test on 6 December 2005, which I passed but could not pass a second Job Simulation Assessment Test arranged. Out of desperation and prompted by Rashmi I wrote a second letter on 14 December 2005 to the University of Greenwich this time direct to the Director of Natural Resources Institute, Dr Guy Poulter, that I had worked for the Institute for 18 years but was taken ill which led to the termination of my appointment in 1998. I have suffered from depression which has kept me off employment for the better part of 6 years. Fortunately with medical treatment I have learnt to control my condition and am seeking employment again. This has proved very difficult as I had become too specialised in the area of natural resource management. I am writing to you because I still feel I have a great deal to contribute to the Institute and the University of Greenwich and wish to resume my career at Natural Resources Institute. I attach my curriculum vitae for your kind consideration. Dr Poulter replied immediately stating Thank you for your letter It was good to hear from you and I remember well working with you back as far as in Grays Inn Road. We have no vacancies at present but we will put your CV on our consultancies database and contact you should any opportunity arise.

On 1st September 2005 I wrote to the Indian High Commission again for a return to India and a job in India or at the High Commission itself but the response was again in the negative. In the meantime I carried on with the cleaning job and constantly on the search for the truth regarding my mental condition. Circumstances had fooled me into thinking that I was one of the chosen ones destined to find God, but so overwhelming was the evidence for this when I was going through the 6 years of struggle that I felt I had no choice but to follow the path outlined by inner force and outer circumstances. I considered that even after losing a great career it was still worth going through this saga in an attempt to find out the truth about God and even at that stage in 2005 I did not consider that all was lost on that particular question. The Citizens Advice Bureau and the University of Greenwich had not enforced their costs orders, and it would give me the opportunity to fight the case again if either of them had gone to court over that issue. If they did not go in for enforcement orders then I would have been vindicated. But time was a critical factor. We could not go on struggling to maintain the household with just Rashmi’s salary and the £51.50 per week that I was earning from my cleaning job. Anything could go wrong like the central heating system which would bring a big bill for repairs. Every other day Rashmi continued to bring me jobs advertised in the Internet, as she was at the end of her tether in struggling to make ends meet.

Prompted by Rashmi I wrote an email in the winter of 2005/6 to the Prime Minister at No 10 Downing Street: Dear Prime Minister. I write this to you after trying and failing to gain employment following a non-stop search for one and half years. I am a 48 year old PhD holder scientist with 18 years of experience at the Natural Resources Institute. My employment was terminated after NRI was privatised and taken over by the University of Greenwich. They accused me of gross misconduct but no one was prepared to hear my side of the story. This resulted in my mental breakdown and I was out of work for 6 years. I have now regained my mental equilibrium but no one seems to be willing to offer me employment. I must have applied for over 200 jobs and have tried for every job possible from menial jobs such as Pot Washer, to work in my own field of expertise in the scientific Civil Service. But the only job I have found is that of a cleaner working for 2 hours a day. I do not get any help from the State except for £31.10 per week disability living allowance. How am I going to manage under such a situation? Employers who proclaim that they are positive about disability do so in name only. An example of this is Kent Police where following a successful interview and a job offer, the offer was subsequently withdrawn after they went through my medical report. I would be grateful for your advice.

I did not receive any acknowledgement of this email, let alone a reply. Rashmi drafted a letter to Kent County Council which was sent on 20 December 2005: Dear Ms Andrade/ Ms Woollett Employment with Kent County Council I write this to express my disappointment at being rejected for every job I have applied for since October 05 till the present day. I hope you will be kind enough in providing me feedback on where I am going wrong please. I started applying for jobs with KCC on the recommendation of a family friend who is also an employee of KCC. I have visited your website on a weekly basis since October 05 and I must have applied for about 18 jobs. And I have received letter advising me that I have not been shortlisted for every job but one. A letter of rejection I received initially offered me feedback but that stopped. I would naturally like to find out how my application forms appear to the Recruitment Team and whether there is any point in applying for more jobs. How long does it normally take for someone to find employment with KCC? I am a person with a superior brain and 18 years of Scientific experience (please see attached CV). Assuming that I may appear over qualified for some of the jobs, I have not declared that I have a Phd in some applications. But this has not helped me. I was very surprised to receive an invitation to an interview for the post of Kent Community Warden as I have no experience in that field of work. Unfortunately, despite performing well at the interview, I was not selected. I am enclosing all the letters of rejection I have received from you within a space of 7/8 weeks. Wishing you a Happy Christmas and Happy New Year.

The letter was acknowledged. I met with the Head of Recruitment Team, Ms Susan Cooke and discussed the situation. She asked me to send her an email when I next submitted Job Applications with Kent County Council, which I did with 3 fresh applications. I was asked to attend an interview for the position of Escort at the Department of Social Services. Nothing came of the intervention by Ms Susan Cooke despite further emails to her sent by Rashmi from my email address.

I attended the interview for the post of Laboratory Technician at Fort Pitt Grammar School for Girls but was unsuccessful. I applied for another post at the Food Standards Agency as a Higher Scientific Officer and some civil service jobs and another job at Kent County Council as Business Assistant Adviser. I was turned down for both.

I had always taken the medications reluctantly to keep on the path of oneness with the Divine Power as Rashmi insisted that I had suffered from delusional disorder and should take the medication. But I also wished to find out how I would cope without the medication and told her so. In March 2006 she reduced the dosage of Risperidone by half to 2 mg per day. I did not suffer any adverse reaction and if anything felt a bit better. The Consultant reorganisation at the Kingsley House Medical Centre had still not been completed and my mid-March six monthly appointment was cancelled by the Centre. A new Indian lady Consultant Pshchiatrist by the name of Dr Shobha had now been appointed for me and I had an appointment with her to which Rashmi came along. She had not much to say but did not disagree with the lowering of the dose for Risperidone and said that she might lower it further at the next appointment as I did not show any psychotic symptoms.

In June 2014, I am still undergoing medical treatment for persistent delusional disorder with Risperidone medication to be taken daily.

June 6, 2014 - Posted by shantanup | Uncategorized