Bursted: Faced With Jail Term, Sarrai Group’s Billionaires Attempts To Circumvent The System Lands Them In Hot Soup

The firms owners Mr Sarbjit Singh Rai, together with Rakesh Kumar and Stephen Kihumba, were found guilty of contempt by High Court judge Dorah Chepkwony in July last year over failure to cease operations at Mumias Sugar Company.

They were fined Sh100,000 each and ordered to appear personally before Justice Alfred Mabeya, the presiding judge of the commercial division of the High Court on May 18, and show cause why they should not be committed to jail for six months.

The court also rejected their application seeking to suspend the entire insolvency proceedings in the High Court.

Hurried application

Aware that they may be fined or thrown to jail, the officials rushed to court of appeal in a bid to stop the sentencing.

West Kenya Sugar company had opposed Sarrai’s application..

Through lead Counsel Muite and Martin Gitonga raised concern over hurried manner in which the hearing of the application was fastracked.

Sarrai Group led by Prof. Githu Muigai had urged the court to suspend all proceedings relating to the lease of Mumias Sugar company.

“The Court be and is hereby pleased to issue an order of stay, restraining any and all further proceedings in HC IP E004 of 2019, particularly and in respect of the finding of contempt vide the ruling and orders of the Justice Chepkwony dated 27th April and delivered on 28th April, 2023, pending hearing and determination of the Applicants’ Appeal,” pleaded Sarrai.

In a letter dated 15th of May ,2023, C.M Wekesa wrote to Court of Appeal president protesting the manner in which directions on Sarrai Group application were issued.

The letter raised concerns on how directions were issued on the application filed by Sarrai Group seeking to stay their sentencing by the High Court.

“With tremendous respect, the directions on the hearing of this application on 16th May, 2023 subverts the right to fair trial for the Respondents and pays no regard to the earlier directions issued by this Court on filing of responses and submissions. By 16th May, 2023 when this application is ostensibly fixed for hearing, the timelines for filing responses, rejoinder and submissions would not have lapsed given that the earliest for the pleadings to have been filed and closed on our part being submissions is 21″ May, 2023,” stated the letter.

“How fair will the hearing be without the Respondents’ responses having been filed and given the directions of this court of 19th May, 2023? How can the Court of Appeal fix the application for hearing before the close of the pleadings as per timeline set by the same Court?” Questioned lawyer Wekesa adding that it was unconstitutional.

He wondered why the case was being fast tracked when there were hundreds of applications, pending before the court and we’re yet to be allocated dates.

“It is even surprising that this Court gave a hearing date of 16 May, 2025 for application E187 of 2023 without giving any directions on the filing of the pleadings. In fact, we learnt of the existence of this application through this Court’s directions fixing the hearing on 16 May, 2023. These directions were issued on Sunday 14 May, 2023,” Wekesa pointed out.

He said the circumstance under which the applications were certified urgent, directions given and the hearing of 16th May, 2023 fixed even before the expiry of filing the responses by the Respondents are troubling and raise more questions than answers.