The Sudhir London Case: Judge Telling QC Puts to Shame Uganda’s Judiciary and it’s Pampered, Naughty Businessman

After looting Crane Bank out of existence and conning Bank of Uganda out of a staggering UGX100Bn which he lyingly received saying he was going to use the same to recapitalize the financial institution whereas not, courts in Uganda went ahead and scandalously awarded Sudhir Ruparelia another Ush200bn! The scandalous award was in respect of a lawsuit which Bank of Uganda had filed via Crane Bank to compel Sudhir to refund hundreds of billions of cash he had looted out of the financial institution.

Sudhir had via a written agreement, conceded to looting his own bank and agreed to refund the cash.The shrewd businessman had in the meantime gone ahead and conned Bank of Uganda out of tens of billions of shillings lying that he was going to use the same to recapitalize the Crane Bank which he had conceded to have looted to its grave. As it turned out, Sudhir disowned his own agreement to refund the cash for which he had staked buildings. He said Bank of Uganda had breached the agreement by leaking the same to the public. Really!

So just like that the businessman said he wasn’t liable to pay what he had admitted in writing, to have looted from Crane Bank and what he had looted from Bank of Uganda under the guise of recapitalizing the bank he himself had looted into extinction. The courts in Uganda all the way to the Supreme Court backed Sudhir saying he wasn’t liable to pay back what he had looted merely because Crane Bank lacked the powers to sue him, having been closed down by Bank of Uganda itself. Such a scandalous position by the Temple of Justice, as if by Crane Bank lacking the powers to sue for recovery of what had been looted out of it, the same meant that Sudhir had not actually looted it and that his own admission to the effect had been in vain.

Bouyed on by those scandalously injudicious rulings and perhaps led on by his lawyers, Sudhir went on to recklessly file a case in London claiming how Bank of Uganda lacked the powers to liquidate Crane Bank and to sell the same to Dfcu. Yet the same Bank of Uganda had granted Sudhir the license to operate as Crane Bank and which he had for years before looting the bank out of existence, had used to operate as such. It should be recalled that Sudhir himself had before his bank was sold to Dfcu, took over National Bank of Commerce after it had experienced financial challenges just as Crane Bank had, before Bank of Uganda sold it to Dfcu.

So, it would have been foolhardy for the same man who had taken over the National Bank of Commerce to assert that Bank of Uganda lacked the powers to dissolve his bank and to sell it to Dfcu via the very circumstances under which he had acquired NBC. The same shameless businessman was not only seeking to be paid close to One Trillion Ugandan Shillings in compensation, but he was also asking the London Court to undo the transaction in which Bank of Uganda had sold Crane Bank to Dfcu. This position, yet the same man had admitted in writing to have looted Crane Bank into insolvency before turning around to use excuses to defeat his commitment to refund what he had looted and which the Judges sort of ruled was ok.

By ruling that he was not vested with powers to entertain Sudhir’s case because Bank of Uganda, by disposing of Crane Bank, was acting on behalf of Uganda, a sovereign state whose Internal Affairs, a foreign court cannot meddle into, Justice Pelling QC was paying Sudhir in exactly his currency since he has always won cases on technical grounds. Sudhir `won` the case against Bank of Uganda not because the case had lacked evidence, but merely because the case had been filed by Crane Bank which had been disposed of by Bank of Uganda. After all, and as we have shared already, Sudhir had admitted looting from Crane Bank and even committed in writing, to pay back what he had extracted from the bank.

But he simply turned around to disown the confession by claiming how Bank of Uganda had leaked the confession. And just like that, the Ugandan judges danced along. Sudhir has `won` all the cases involving irregular property acquisitions by conningly asserting how he had not been party to the fraud involved in earlier alterations of the same properties by people or entities he happened to have purchased the same from. Currently, Sudhir is cited for building on wetlands. His defense is that for him, he was cleared by the relevant authorities to build there, the fact that what he did was criminal in the first place notwithstanding. As we wind up, we want to state that the London Judge has vindicated us at the Investigator, remembering that we have been called all sorts of names and labeled extortionists just for standing up to Sudhir and his dubious dealings.

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Stephen Kasozi Muwambi: Mr. Stephen Kasozi Muwambi is a seasoned crime investigative writer, majoring in judicial-based stories. His two decades’ experience as a senior investigative journalist has made him one of the best to reckon on in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected]