VANCOUVER - The attorney general of British Columbia says the province will make all efforts to collect millions of dollars owed for legal fees by one of the men acquitted in the Air India bombings, after the country's highest court ruled in its favour Thursday.
The Supreme Court of Canada granted the B.C. government access to evidence that was seized in a bid to prove Ripudaman Singh Malik can afford to pay his own $5.2-million legal bill.
"B.C. will pursue all our available means to collect the money we believe is owed to taxpayers," Attorney General Barry Penner said.
The province sought the evidence with a search warrant to show he was trying to defraud the Crown and get out of paying his defence costs, claiming he was broke.
Malik and three of his family members appealed the decision allowing the search of his home, business and his son's law office but by then, government lawyers had already conducted the search.
Malik argued the search order shouldn't have been granted because it relied on information from an earlier court proceeding.
But in its unanimous ruling on Thursday, Canada's top court disagreed, ruling that a judgment in a prior civil or criminal case is admissible.
If the facts had to be argued all over again, "it would have been wasteful of litigation resources and potentially productive of mischief and inconsistent findings," Justice Ian Binnie said in the written ruling.
Penner said the documents are in the control of an independent lawyer and have not been seen by the province.
He declined to comment further because of a civil case Malik launched two years ago against the province and the federal government claiming malicious prosecution and violation of his charter rights, arguing the Air India charges smeared his reputation and caused him financial losses.
In March 2005, a B.C. Supreme Court judge acquitted Malik and co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri in the 1985 bombings of two separate Air India flights that killed a total of 331 people.
During a bail hearing in 2000, Malik said he and his wife, Raminder Malik, had a net worth of $11.6 million.
Less than a year later, he applied to the court for non-repayable financial assistance, claiming he had no money to fund his legal defence.
B.C. Judge Sunni Stromberg-Stein turned him down, finding that Malik and his family were arranging their finances to make him seem insolvent when he was, in fact, a multimillionaire who had given away luxury cars.
Malik testified at the funding hearing that he owed loans to family and back wages to his adult children for work at his clothing business and hotel, but the judge called the evidence, including the unrecorded wages, "unreliable" and "full of discrepancies."
However, before the Air India trial started in April 2003, the provincial government agreed to pay interim costs for Malik's 11-member defence team. He was to repay the funds but failed to do so, prompting the province to sue and file a court order to conduct the search to prove Malik had the money.
Only one man has ever been convicted for his part in the Air India bombings. Inderjit Singh Reyat was convicted of manslaughter in the bombing that killed two Japanese baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita airport on June 23, 1985.
In 2003, Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with supplying the bomb parts that blew up Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board, about an hour after the Narita blast.
Earlier this year, Reyat was found guilty of perjury for his testimony at the Air India trial and handed a nine-year sentence. He is appealing the sentence.
Last month, Malik's former co-accused, Bagri, also filed a lawsuit against the federal and provincial governments, claiming his charter rights were violated by the failed prosecution.
