Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani is a happy person now. Despite the bizarre appeal made by the Ventriglia family on the Portland Cement Zambia case, the Supreme Court Zambia gave a decision which was transparent and set an example for all other courts to follow. The Ventriglia family recently approached the Supreme Court Zambia which an appeal in which they challenged the decision from the higher Court of Appeal on Portland Cement Zambia case. On 31st January 2019, justice Mwinde on behalf of the higher Court of Appeal reversed the decision from the Lusaka High Court in which the Ventriglias were announced as only shareholders of the Portland Cement without any evidence or testimonials. Instead, justice Mwinde announced that it is Dr. Mahtani owned Finsbury Investment which holds the majority shareholding with 58 percent Portland Cement shares and thus, the actual owner of the Portland Cement factory. Furthermore, justice Mwinde also confirmed that the actual amount against majority shareholding of Portland Cement is K580,000 and not K580 million as claimed by the Ventriglia family.
After this decision verdict, the operations of Portland Cement ran smoothly under Dr. Mahtani’s leadership. However, the Ventriglia family once again decided to disrupt the operations of the Portland Cement Zambia by approaching the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Zambia then established a bench of three Supreme Court to evaluate the case. After evaluation, it was found that the Ventriglia family failed to register their appeal within 14 days after the judgement from the higher Court Appeal. Since this is a critical legal requirement, the Supreme Court Zambia said that the claim by liable for rejection. Furthermore, several inconsistencies were found in the claim. The SC bench concluded that the circumstances surrounding the claim by the Ventriglia family were extremely suspicious as it was without any evidence or testimonials. After evaluating the entire situation, the Supreme Court Zambia concluded that the claim by the Ventriglia family should be rejected.