Zambia’s highest legal system is Supreme Court Zambia where the buck stops. Supreme Court Zambia recently evaluated the case of Portland Cement which was taken to the SC in a bizarre appeal by the Ventriglia family. The case of Portland Cement Zambia dates back to more than a decade when Dr. Rajan Mahtani first approached the Lusaka High Court after unethical takeover of the Portland Cement Zambia by the Ventriglias family. This was followed by a long stretch of case proceedings and controversial verdict in 2018 when justice Nkonde on behalf of the Lusaka High Court announced Ventriglias as only shareholders of the Portland Cement Zambia.
Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani followed this with another appeal at the higher Court of Appeal. This time, the court proceeding was quick and transparent with final verdict on 31st January 2019. In this verdict, Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani was announced as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory. Justice Mwinde also condemned the previous decision from the Lusaka High Court and reversed it.
Despite a stern and transparent decision from the higher Court of Appeal, the Ventriglia family once again disrupted the factory operations by launching another claim at the Supreme Court Zambia. This type, the Ventriglias claimed that the decision from the higher Court of Appeal on the Portland Cement Zambia case was wrong. To evaluate this claim, a bench of three SC judges were appointed. During evaluation, the Supreme Court bench found that the Ventriglia family failed to comply with critical legal requirement under which all appeals against previous court decision must be submitted within 14 days of the court decision. This means the Ventriglia family were required to submit their appeal by mid of February 2019 but failed to do so. The SC bench also found the circumstances surrounding the case to be questionable. Based on all these aspects, the claim by the Ventriglia family was rejected by the Supreme Court.