Court of Appeal for Ontario
BEFORE: Simmons, Rouleau and Tulloch JJ.A.
BETWEEN
Her Majesty the Queen
Respondent
and
Manjit Sethi and Waseem Iqbal
Appellants
COUNSEL:
Ravin Pillay, for the appellant Manjit Sethi
Faisal Mirza, for the appellant Waseem Iqbal
Joseph Selvaratnam, for the respondent
Heard: October 14, 2014
On appeal from the judgment of Justice Hugh K. O’Connell of the Superior Court of Justice, dated January 8, 2014, dismissing the application for certiorari made to Justice Anne-Marie Hourigan of the Ontario Court of Justice, dated January 18, 2013, seeking to quash the committal for trial.
APPEAL BOOK ENDORSEMENT
1At paragraphs 61, 62, 65 and 66 of his reasons, the certiorari judge referenced the findings of the preliminary inquiry judge which, in his view, demonstrated that “the circumstantial evidence made for the logical and reasonable inference “drawn by the preliminary inquiry judge namely, that there was sufficient evidence to commit on counts 1 to 17.” We agree with that conclusion.
2Despite the argument of the appellants, we also agree with the finding of the certiorari judge that given the totality of the evidence, it would have been an artificial exercise to attempt to parse out what contents were constructively possessed by the appellants. We agree with the certiorari judge that based on the totality of the evidence, it was open to the preliminary inquiry judge to draw the inference that the appellants had possession of the entire contents of the stash house.
3While other inferences may also have been available on the evidence, we see no error in the certiorari judge’s conclusion that the inferences drawn by the preliminary inquiry judge were available.
4The appeal is therefore dismissed.
