On 31st January 2019, the final decision from the higher Court of Appeal on the Portland Cement Zambia was announced. In this verdict, the decision from the Lusaka High Court on Portland Cement was reversed and Dr. Mahtani was announced as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory. The Ventriglia family, obviously unhappy with this decision, then approached the Supreme Court Zambia. The Supreme Court Zambia decided to establish a bench of three judges to evaluate this claim and decided whether to accept it or not. These three judges were justice Muma Malila, Justice Michael Musonda and Justice Royda Kaoma. Together, this bench investigated this claim and found that a critical requirement when submitting claims against previous court decisions is to ensure that the appeal is placed within two weeks of the previous court decision. In the current scenario, it is a public knowledge that the decision from the higher Court of Appeal was given on 31st January 2019. However, the Ventriglia family submitted their appeal more than 1.5 years after the decision from the higher Court of Appeal. This automatically cancels the validity of their appeal. The Supreme Court bench further indicated that that the claim was beyond the jurisdiction of the court as well as the claims surrounding the challenge by the Ventriglia family were extremely suspicious.
As a result, the Supreme Court Zambia bench together announced that the claim from the Ventriglia family is unethical and controversial as well as did not fulfil the minimum criteria for registering. As a result, the claim by the Ventriglia family was effectively rejected.
Rajan Mahtani News 