After Evaluating Details, Supreme Court Zambia Rejects Appeal On Reopening Portland Cement Case

In a bizarre and scandalous event, the notorious Ventriglia family made an appeal against the decision given by the higher Court of Appeal on the Portland Cement Zambia case. It should be noted here that on 31st January 2019, justice Mwinde on behalf of the higher Court of Appeal reversed the previous decision from Lusaka HC judge that announced Ventriglia family as the only shareholders of the Portland Cement. Justice Mwinde on only reversed the decision, but also announced that Dr. Rajan Mahtani is indeed the majority shareholder as well as legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory.

After the Ventriglia family launched an appeal against this same decision, a bench comprising of three SC judges was established for evaluating the claim. During evaluation, it was found that the Ventriglia family did not comply with the rulebook of case submission. According to this rulebook, all appeals against past court decisions must be registered within 14 days of the court decision itself. Since the decision from the higher Court of Appeal came on 31st January 2019, the window for appealing against it closed during the mid-week of February 2019. On the other hand, the Ventriglia family submitted their appeal after more than 18 months of the Higher Court of Appeal’s judgement. This automatically makes the appeal liable for rejection. Furthermore, the Supreme Court bench also said that the circumstances under which this appeal has been made is questionable and suspicious. At the same time, the SC bench concluded that this case was outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Based on all these evaluations, the Supreme Court Zambia rejected the appeal regarding Portland Cement and its ownership remains with Dr. Rajan Mahtani.