Reprieve for Sacco in 5,000-acre Tsavo land row
The Environment and Land Court has cancelled the title deeds of two plots of land in Nairobi after it emerged that the acquisition of the property was fraudulently facilitated by officials of Harambee Sacco.
A co-operative society got a reprieve after the Court of Appeal reinstated for hearing a case it had filed against a ranching company over ownership documents of 5,000 acres of land it had purchased.
The Environment and Land Court (ELC) struck out Sasenyi Multipurpose Co-operative Society's case against Rukinga Ranching Company Ltd on the grounds that it was sub judice of another case. This led to the cooperative society's appeal.
Appellate judges Daniel Musinga, Kibaya Laibuta, and Grace Ngenye-Macharia ruled that Sasenyi Multipurpose Co-operative Society Ltd's appeal against a ruling by the ELC was meritorious.
“We allow the appeal, set aside the trial court’s ruling, and substitute therefore an order that the case be reinstated for hearing,” ruled the Court of Appeal.
Rukinga Ranching Company Ltd had filed a preliminary objection (at the ELC) to the case by the cooperative society arguing that there were similar proceedings between the same parties over the same case.
The crux of the Sasenyi Multipurpose Co-operative Society Ltd case, the court heard, was that it was Rukinga Ranching Company Ltd’s obligation to have the certificate of title corrected to reflect the appropriate land tenure.
It also wanted an order to compel the Rukinga Ranching Company Ltd to issue it (cooperative society) with a lease, certificate of lease, certificate of title, and all other documents required for purposes of giving it good title to the land.
This prompted the Rukinga Ranching Company Ltd to file the preliminary objection which was allowed by the ELC on the issue of sub judice and the case by the cooperative society struck out.
In its appeal, the cooperative society faulted the ELC for striking out its case and also accused it of failing to analyze and appreciate the circumstances of the other case thus wrongly concluding that it dealt with the same subject matter as the case which gave rise to the ruling striking out its suit.
The cooperative society had also argued that the ranching company had refused to give it a proper title despite payment of the full purchase price and that the ELC ought to have allowed the dispute between parties to proceed to a full hearing and determination on merit.
Rukinga Ranching Company Ltd argued that two cases were filed by the same party (cooperative society) against it in respect of the same subject matter and in the same court.
The genesis of the case was that on April 8, 1998, the parties entered into an agreement for the sale and transfer of leasehold interest on a 5,000-acre parcel of land located west of Mackinon Road, Tsavo in Taita Taveta.
The court heard that a title document was prepared and issued to the cooperative society evidencing ownership of the land and that whereas the ranching company held leasehold interest over the land and the title given to the cooperative society erroneously indicated that the interest transferred was freehold.
Sasenyi Multipurpose Co-operative Society Ltd returned the freehold title to the ranching company’s lawyers and requested that they correct the error so that the certificate of title would reflect the transfer of a leasehold interest, but the ranching company denied liability.
