Tour firm petitions CJ to probe Justice Odoki

KAMPALA. The case against Crane Bank and Ms Fang Min is not over despite a Supreme Court decision in their favour.
The proprietors of Belex Tours and Travel Limited, have petitioned the Chief Justice Bart Katureebe, seeking an inquiry against Justice Benjamin Odoki alleging ‘irregular conduct’ of the judge in determination of the case which Crane Bank and Ms Fang Min won on the final appeal.

Petition
In a July 10 petition to the Chief Justice, Belex Tours and Travel is seeking a review of the July 8 majority judgment by Justice Odoki and an inquiry into his alleged irregular conduct in handling the appeal.
“We are alarmed that the learned Justice Odoki blatantly dismissed the evidence of fraud found by the Court of Appeal as mere conjecture and attractive reasoning,” reads the petition which describes Odoki’s judgment as ‘a fundamental departure, contradiction and deviation’ from the Supreme Court precedents.

According to the petition where Belex Tours and Travel is also seeking President Museveni’s intervention, the Supreme Court set a law that courts will not permit parties to benefit from their illegal and fraudulent transactions to the detriment of others.
On July 8, the Supreme Court cleared Crane Bank and the proprietor of Fang Fang Hotel of fraud after it overturned a lower court’s order to pay the tour and travel firm over Shs194m.

Justice Odoki criticised the Court of Appeal for finding that the purchase price of $745,000 paid by Ms Fang Min to Crane Bank did not include the value of the movables and furniture.
He ruled that “the respondent (Belex Tours and Travel Limited) was not entitled to recover from the appellants (Fang Min and Crane Bank) Shs194.3m as the appellants were not guilty of conversion of the possessions.”
Belex Tour and Travel Limited is the mother company that owned Holiday Hotel, which Crane Bank sold to Ms Fang Min to recover a loan the former had borrowed.

The background
In October 2013, the Court of Appeal held that the whole transaction of the sale and transfer of Holiday Hotel to Ms Fang Min by Crane Bank was illegal and fraudulent.
The court had ordered the bank to pay general damages to Belex Tours and Travel for loss of business and property worth $704,829 (about Shs2.3 billion) following the sale of the hotel.

The Court of Appeal cited falsification of transfer forms and said Ms Fang Min mortgaged the hotel to Crane Bank, before paying for it (hotel), to get a loan from the same bank, which was the seller.
The court held that Fang Min used the new loan to pay for the hotel in order to acquire ownership.
The Court of Appeal concluded that the execution of the mortgage by Crane Bank and Ms Min did not comply with the law and was therefore invalid.
The decision was overturned in the Supreme Court, the highest court of appeal in the country.

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