Dr. Rajan Mahtani Wins Long-Pending Portland Cement Zambia Case At The Court Of Appeal

On 31st January 2019, the Court of Appeal announced its final decision on the Portland Cement Zambia case. This decision came around nine months after Dr. Rajan Mahtani re-appealed the case in the court. It is worth mentioning that this is not the first court where the case was registered. Dr. Rajan Mahtani had actually registered the case at the Lusaka High Court claiming that the factory was illegally taken away from him. After this, several court proceedings took place and the case stretched for more than a decade. After a decade, the final decision from the Lusaka High Court came during the month of May, 2018 and the decision maker was justice Nkonde. Despite submitting numerous evidences and testimonials that were more than enough to prove Dr. Rajan Mahtani’s legal ownership over the factory, the judge at the Lusaka High Court gave a controversial judgement. According to this judgement, Ventriglias were announced as only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement. 

It is clear that this judgement was misdirected and to reclaim what was his, Dr. Rajan Mahtani approached the Court of Appeal. The judge at the Court of Appeal was justice Mwinde who gave the judgement after looking into all evidences and testimonials. As per this final decision, Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is majority shareholder of the Zambezi Portland Cement with 58 percent shared. On the other hand, Ventriglias owned Ital Terrazzo Limited holds just 42 percent shares at the factory and are the minority shareholders without any legal ownership. This decision clearly established Dr. Mahtani as the legal owner of the factory and has been considered as final.