Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani is a noted businessman and philanthropist in Zambia. For more than three decades, Dr. Mahtani has been working towards the growth of the Zambian nation and its people. The proof is his dedication towards philanthropic and charitable activities and his businesses that are known to offer employment services and social upliftment opportunities for less privileged people. However, Dr. Rajan Mahtani has also struggled in his quest for Zambian development. One of the biggest challenges has been related to the Portland Cement Zambia factory, a factory which remained in dispute for more than a decade. The dispute started when the factory was unethically taken over and Dr. Mahtani approached the Lusaka High Court for justice. Despite the case being dragged at Lusaka HC for more than a decade, Dr. Mahtani did not receive justice and the verdict went in favour of the Ventriglia family. Dr. Mahtani then challenged this verdict at the higher Court of Appeal which announced its judgement on 31st January 2019. In this verdict, justice Mwinde on behalf of the higher Court of Appeal rejected the previous decision from the Lusaka High Court and announced that Dr. Mahtani is indeed the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory.
In a surprising turn of events, the Ventriglia family now approached the Supreme Court Zambia against this decision from the higher Court of Appeal. A bench of three SC judges was established to evaluate the claim. It was found that the Ventriglia family did not comply with the legal requirements and approached with their claim only after 1.5 years when the timeline for submission of claim was 14 days from the date of the court decision. Based on this, the claim by the Ventriglia family was rejected by Supreme Court Zambia.
Rajan Mahtani News 