The Supreme Court has dismissed an application to have it review a ruling on the management of a multi-billion shilling empire that belonged to a Mombasa businessman.<\/p>\n
The decision is the latest in a long-running legal battle fought by relatives of the late Jaswant Singh Boor Dhanjal on the inheritance of his empire worth an estimated Sh15 billion.\u201cThe Supreme Court was not intended to be an extra tier of appeal to handle all and sundry appeals from the Court of Appeal,\u201d the court ruled last Friday.According to the apex court, the applicant, Nirmal Singh Dhanjal – Jaswant\u2019s nephew, failed to demonstrate that the case was of general public importance hence warranted its interpretation.<\/p>\n
The matter that was heard and determined by the High Court and Court of Appeal \u2013 and which has divided the family into two camps \u2013 revolved around determining whether Jaswant\u2019s property had been transferred in a proper and legal manner.<\/p>\n
After Jaswant died without leaving a will in 2004, the family allowed his son, Daljit Singh Dhanjal, to become the administrator of the huge estate.On July 26, 2006, Daljit obtained letters of administration. But three months earlier, on March 9, he had entered into an agreement to transfer a share of the estate to his uncles.<\/p>\n
In March 2015, another son, Joginder Singh Dhanjal, filed a case in the Mombasa High Court seeking revocation of the grant letters issued to Daljit and the settlement agreement he entered into with two of their uncles.Joginder argued that the deal with Dalip Singh Dhanjal and Baldev Singh Dhanjal was illegal because his brother (Daljit) had no legal capacity to transfer the shares at the time.<\/p>\n
The complainant told the court that the transfer of their father\u2019s properties without a confirmed letter of grant from Jaswant\u2019s estate was null and void.\u201cIt was a ploy to disinherit me,\u201d he claimed.But the third brother, Surjit Singh Jaswant, and one of two sisters, Jasper Kaur Nagi, jumped to Daljit\u2019s defence, saying they stood behind the decision that authorised him to manage their father\u2019s assets.In its verdict, the High Court ruled that Daljit erred by entering into a settlement agreement to transfer his father\u2019s shares before the letters of administration had been issued and confirmed.<\/p>\n
Elaborate document<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe transfer of the deceased\u2019s 18,750 shares in Dhanjal Investment to Dalip Singh Dhanjal is void,\u201d ruled Justice Mugure Thande.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cWhile purporting to act as an administrator of the deceased\u2019s estate, Daljit entered into a settlement agreement with the deceased\u2019s brothers in which certain shares of the deceased\u2019s estate were transferred in a very elaborate document titled \u2018settlement agreement\u2019.\u201cThis where the problems began as the other beneficiaries of the deceased\u2019s estate distanced themselves from the said settlement agreement.<\/p>\n \u201dThe matter did not end there after an appeal was lodged. On February 15, 2018, a three-judge bench of justices Alnashir Visram, Wanjiru Karanja and Martha Koome also ruled that Daljit had not followed due process of \u201cobtaining the requisite confirmed grant showing the mode of distributing the deceased\u2019s assets.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn a nutshell, this court found that any transfers done under the settlement agreement were null and void because at the time the said transfers were executed, the letters of administration appointing Daljit the administrator of the deceased\u2019s estate were not yet issued or confirmed.\u201cThis means he was not an administrator of the estate and as such, he lacked the authority to effect transfer of shares or any disposition of the deceased properties,\u201d the court ruled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Supreme Court has dismissed an application to have it review a ruling on the management of a multi-billion shilling empire that belonged to a Mombasa businessman. The decision is the latest in a long-running legal battle fought by relatives of the late Jaswant Singh Boor Dhanjal on the inheritance of his empire worth an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":2830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,5,8],"tags":[430,1524,428],"class_list":["post-2829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-economy","category-homepage-english","tag-court-of-appeal","tag-jaswant-singh-boor-dhanjal","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\n