By Watchdog reporter
Bank of Uganda has blamed its lawyers for delaying to file a response to businessman Sudhir Ruparelia’s claim where he demands US$8 million in form of refund from the Central Bank for failure to honour agreement between the two parties.
Before being dragged to court, Sudhir and Bank of Uganda had agreed to settle matters outside court and the businessman paid the huge sum of money to the central bank as part of a settlement agreement reached by both parties in the wake of the takeover of Crane Bank.
In a counterclaim by Sudhir’s defence team, Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA), they faulted the Bank of Uganda for failing to act in accordance with the ‘legal requirement’ of Order 5 Rule 10 of the Civil Procedure Rules, after they failed to enter defence in the stipulated time of 15 days, which, according to KAA, should have been before August 29.
As BoU defence team claimed to have filed response in time, BoU lawyer Margaret Kasule has revealed that their external lawyers delayed to do so thus seeking for a one day extension in respect to filing the response to the counter claim.
‘Whilst the ‘Defence to Counterclaim’ was filed in time in response to the 1st Applicant, on whom service had been effected through MMAKS Advocates on 14th August 2017, the ‘Defence to Counterclaim’ was filed 1 day late in relation to the 2nd Applicant on whom service had been effected directly on the 11thAugust 2017. This late filing was through inadvertent error of counsel which should not be visited on the applicant,”
Early this year, Bank of Uganda dragged Sudhir and his Meera Investment to Court accusing them of siphoning shs400billion from the now defunct Crane Bank.
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