Court has dismissed Bank of Uganda’s (BoU) appeal against business man and tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia in which BoU contested the ruling of the lower court submitted on the 26th of August.
The panel of court of appeal judges led by acting Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo upheld the judgement of commercial court judge David Wangutsi in an application filed by the commercial bank seeking a refund of Shs397 Billion from Sudhir which he allegedly got from Crane bank.
The Court of appeal dismissed the case with costs.
In August 2019, the commercial court dismissed a case filed by tycoon Sudhir, in which the commercial bank accused him of taking shs379 billion from Crane Bank through fraudulent transactions and transfer of land titles.
In his ruling, justice David Wangutsi said that while in receivership, Crane Bank had no legal basis to sue.
In April, 2019, business man asked court to dismiss a shs379 billion case brought against him. Quoting the financial Institutions Act (2004), Justice Wangutsi ruled that a bank in receivership is not permitted to sue or be sued. He added that in this particular case, Crane Bank (In receivership) cannot and should not have sued tycoon Sudhir and his Meera Investments.
Following that, BoU was ordered to pay costs to the businessman and Meera Investments.
On October 20, 2016, BoU placed Crane Bank under statutory management for being under-capitalised. BoU attributed the under-capitalisation to to mismanagement and insider lending resulting in the bank’s unsustainable non-performing loan portfolio.
On January 25, 2017, BoU put Crane Bank under receivership.
When BoU alongside crane Bank sued businessman Sudhir Ruparelia and his Meera investments company for allegedly drawing Shs379 billion from his bank through fraudulent transactions, the businessman denied all allegations and counter sued BoU seeking for a compensation of USD 8 million (Shs28 billion) in damages for breach of contract.