By Spy Uganda
Businessman Shukla Babubhai Mukesh aka Shumuk of Shumuk Aluminium Industries Limited is set for eviction after losing an appeal filed in the High Court challenging a ruling that favoured Megha Industries Limited owned by Shiraz Meghani and Skander Meghani.
The appeal arose from a ruling on a 2008 civil suit in the Nakawa Magistrates Court that was determined in June 2020 which Megha Industries Limited sought to challenge in the High Court. Megha Industries boss Meghani asked court to dismiss Shumuk’s appeal. Through its Managing Director, the company argued that Shumuk Aluminium Industries Limited had filed the appeal out of time without leave of court; that the appeal was “incompetent, incurably defective, legally untenable, frivolous, vexatious and it is misconceived at law,” and that “there was a failure to take essential steps in respect of the appeal, and any essential steps if taken were taken outside the prescribed period under the law.”
Meghani added that the appeal was “an abuse of court process, an afterthought, intended to perpetrate a negation of justice, and is fashioned to be used as a tool for an attainment and of illicit and forbidden purposes.”
Although Shumuk Aluminium Industries Limited General Manager Dan Muhumuza filed an affidavit in reply to the application challenging the appeal, Megha Industries Limited submitted a preliminary objection, arguing that the GM Muhumuza had no authority to reply to Meghani’s affidavit as required under the Companies Act of 2012.
That Muhumuza’s affidavit as sworn on behalf of the company was “incompetent at law for want of legal authority” since the General Manager did not attach any instrument of authorization to reply on behalf of Shumuk Aluminium Industries Limited.
In his July 30, 2021 ruling, Justice Eudes Keitirima agreed with Megha Industries Limited’s lawyers. “Dan Muhumuza who swore an affidavit in reply on behalf of the respondent as a General Manager did not attach any instrument of authorization allowing him to swear an affidavit on behalf of the respondent as required by law,” the judge emphasized an argument by Meghani and his lawyers. “His affidavit in reply is therefore defective for non-compliance with the requirements of the law and will be struck out with costs.”
Keitirima continued: “This therefore renders this application unchallenged. The preliminary objection is therefore upheld and it disposes of the entire application and appeal. I will therefore allow this application. High Court Civil Appeal No 061 of 2020 arising from Nakawa Court Civil Suit No 136 of 2008 will be struck out with cost.”
Now, after the above ruling, mighty TheSpy Uganda snoops have landed on an eviction order permitting Megha Industries to evict Mukesh and his Shumuk Aluminium Industries Ltd in Nakawa, on Monday 16th May 2022.
“By way of giving vacant possession and demolition of the stair case measuring 24 square metres and the removal of the from the plaintiff’s portion of land formally known as plot No’s 158, 159, 33 and 34 land at Lugogo Show Ground,” partially reads eviction order.
