KAMPALA — City tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia has vowed to face the Central Bank in the appeal court after the Bank of Uganda declined to concede defeat in the face of a High Court ruling last month that condemned them to costs.
The appeal followed an earlier botched plot by the Bank of Uganda to recover UGX397 billion from the city businessman, whose Crane Bank Ltd was controversially closed by the BoU in 2016.
While, unveiling a magnificent Electrical Plaza, one of his new buildings in Kampala on Saturday, Sudhir said he was more than ready to meet the central bank in court.
“Me, I am ready, today, tomorrow and the other day. Let me tell you, law is law, nobody can reinvent law. You see they created this law to protect themselves. They are saying no body can sue them. So we used the same law to defeat them,” he told journalists.
The property Mogul said Bank of Uganda officials had acted arrogantly in the closure of some banks including his Crane Bank Ltd but the law had caught up with them.
“We used the same law they used to protect themselves to defeat them. If anybody has sense in Bank of Uganda, they have such dumb lawyers there. If their lawyers knew the law they are supposed to enforce, this could have not happened,” he said.
A simple calculation by industry experts revealed that BoU could pay upto UGX110 billion as the battle with city tycoon in the aftermath of the closure of Crane Bank Ltd rages.
Justice David Wangutusi of Commercial Court on last month dismissed a case in which BoU claimed that tycoon Mr. Ruparelia and his Meera Investments Ltd fleeced his own Crane Bank Ltd (now in receivership) of UGX397 billion.
Bank of Uganda, through their new attorney Dr. Joseph Byamugisha of Byamugisha & Co Ltd however chosen to file an appeal, but according to legal experts, with the Central Bank condemned to legal costs for a case before the High Court, at least is five percent of the decretal sum , the BoU is expected to compensate Sudhir with at least UGX. 19b and his Meera Investments Ltd would also claim another UGX. 19b, with the whole bill expected at 36b.
With the decision to appeal the ruling, should the Central Bank lose at the Court of Appeal, they would be condemned at 10 percent cots of the appeal.
A quick calculation puts the whole figure at atleast UGX. 110 billion.
In his 22-page ruling that was delivered by the court’s deputy registrar, Mr Festo Nsenga last month, Justice Wangutusi noted that at the time BoU and Crane Bank (in receivership) filed the suit against Mr Ruparelia and his Meera Investments in January 2017, Crane Bank was a non-existing entity, having been terminated when the Central Bank sold its assets to DFCU Bank in October 2016.
