Kampala– The long standing dispute between Bank of Uganda and businessman Sudhir Ruparelia has finally been disposed off-with Supreme Court ordering that management of Crane Bank reverts to its shareholders.
The Supreme Court on Friday Morning also ordered the central bank to pay costs at all court levels, right from the Commercial Bank.
Five justices of the Court led by Opio Aweria have unanimously ruled that since Bank of Uganda chose to withdraw its appeal, it meant that the earlier orders of the two lower courts which dismissed the case with costs still stand.
The ruling marks an end of a five-year-legal battle between Sudhir Ruparelia, real estate arm-Meera Investment Ltd, his former Bank- Crane Bank Ltd and Bank of Uganda which arose in 2017 when Bank of Uganda accused Sudhir and Meera Investments of siphoning over 397 billion shillings from the defunct Crane Bank.
However, Commercial court judge David Wangututsi dismissed the case with costs on grounds that he found no misconduct on the side of Sudhir to warrant prosecution; a position that was also maintained by the Court of Appeal in 2020.
The Central Bank was disatisfied by the decision and hence lodged an appeal in the Supreme court to have it overturned but along the way, the Bank lost interest in prosecuting the appeal prompting to file a notice of withdrawal but arguing that costs should be paid by Crane Bank.
However, this didnot settle well with Sudhir who insisted Bank of Uganda should pay their costs because Crane Bank exists no more having had its assets sold to DFCU bank in 2016.
Sudhir further argued that all along from the commercial court in January 2017, it has been Bank of Uganda suing on behalf of Crane bank and there is no way Bank of Uganda can now throw away the burden of costs to a non-existent entity which is incapable of instituting legal proceedings.
