Healthy Sudhir Stings Sickly BOU In Crane Bank Case
The court of Appeal has this morning dismissed a multi-billion case against businessman Sudhir Ruparellia and his Meera investments company in which the Central Bank accuses him of siphoning over 397 billion shillings from his defunct Crane Bank .
Three justices of the court including deputy chief justice Alfonse Owiny -Dollo , Cheborion Barishaki and Steven Musota have unanimously ruled that after a careful perusal of evidence; they too find no misconduct against Sudhir that would warrant litigation and hence forth ordered Bank of Uganda to pay costs incurred by the businessman to defend himself in both courts .
In their ruling read to court by registrar Mary Babirye, the Justices have also confirmed that at the time of filing this suit in January 2017, Crane Bank Limited was already in receivership and a non -existing entity whose life time was terminated /ended when Bank of Uganda sold its assets to DFCU in October 2016.
The justices have been in further agreement with trial Commercial Court judge David Wangutusi that being in receivership; Crane Bank had no capacity to institute legal proceedings against its former Director.
But having been dissatisfied with the above position ; Bank of Uganda petitioned the Court of Appeal last year to challenge the decision of justice Wangutusi to compel it to pay costs yet he didnot fully hear the case but disposed it off basing on a point of law .
The court of Appeal has instead further compelled it to pay costs having found out that the Central Bank wrongfully dragged Sudhir to court .
Bank of Uganda and Crane Bank in receivership had wanted Sudhir and Meera to pay back over 397Billlion shillings that it claims the two fraudulently took out of crane Bank where Sudhir was owning 100% shares.
Immediately after the court ruling; Sudhir who has been in company of his son Ranjiv and lawyers of Kampala Associated advocates explained that someone in Bank of Uganda stole that money which would have been helping government in this COVID-19 pandemic.
He also announced that he will be seeking millions of dollars in costs.
This becomes the third time, Sudhir is triumphing commercial litigations against Bank of Uganda which derive from the hotly contested sale of Crane Bank that he owned until October 2016 when the Central Bank took over its liabilities and assets before selling it off to DFCU Bank at shs 200 billion.
