The Court of Appeal has allowed four people to be enjoined in a suit in which retired President Mwai Kibaki is seeking to regain control of a company he claims he has co-owned since the 1970s.
Shareholders John Mwangi Kibira, Peter Weru Gichuhi, Jacinta Mwara Mathenge and Daniel Githinji Gitonga filed the application at the Court of Appeal in Nyeri County through Mindo Advocates.
CONTROL
Judges GBM Kariuki, Fatuma Sichale and J Kantai allowed them to be enjoined.
In the case, Mr Kibaki and Mr Kimwatu Kanyungu filed an appeal seeking control of Mathingira Wholesalers Company Ltd, saying they want the firm reverted to them.
They want the Court of Appeal to overturn orders issued by the Lands and Environment Court on July 12, 2016 in which Justice Lucy Waithaka directed that two sets of directors continue managing the firm jointly.
In the appeal, Mr Kibaki and Mr Kanyungu want the court to quash the directive that the company elect a new board of officials to run its affairs and access its bank accounts.
They also want the directors who are currently running the firm to be removed.
JUSTICE
Mr Mindo told the three-judge bench that the four shareholders were also affected by the Lands Court’s orders, as they were not heard during the proceedings last year.
“We shall definitely be a useful tool in this issue and we are serious about it. It is definitely contrary to justice to have a person’s property given to another person behind the former’s back,” said senior counsel Mindo.
“Nobody should be condemned unheard. We need not to belabour this legal concept here as we are simply knocking at the door of the seat of justice asking to be let in so that we can be heard.”
DEATHS
Mr Mindo added that the Lands Court was not informed about the deaths of some shareholders who were parties in the case, contrary to the Laws of Succession Act.
“It was a futile exercise to continue with the prosecution of the suit when a party thereto was already dead. We should not be condemned for giving this information now that we have had the opportunity to do so. We should be commended for doing so,” the judges were told.
Mr Mindo added that some parties in the case died during the hearing of the suit and their next of kin were not represented in the case.
“This is a legal requirement with legal consequences according to Civil Procedure Rules,” the court heard.
The case continues.
