Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani is a happy person now. After more than a decade of struggle, patience and perseverance, he was finally announced the owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory. This decision came from the Court of Appeal, the second court where the case was registered. The first court where the case was registered was Lusaka High Court which failed to give justice to Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani. After ten years of case proceedings and several judge transfers, the judge at the Lusaka High Court was justice Nkonde who announced that the Ventriglias were only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement. It was clear that this judgement was misdirected and biased which left Dr. Rajan Mahtani with no option but to approach the Court of Appeal.
The judge at the Court of Appeal was justice Mwinde who gave the final judgement on 31st January 2019. This decision was given after looking into all evidences and testimonials. According to this final decision, Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is majority shareholder of the Zambezi Portland Cement with 58 percent shares. On the other hand, Ventriglias owned Ital Terrazzo Limited holds just 42 percent shares at the factory and are the minority shareholders without any legal ownership over the factory. This decision also aligns with the original Shareholders Agreement established in the year 2007. Based on this definite decision by the Court of Appeal, it is clear that Dr. Rajan Mahtani is the legal owner of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory.
After the final announcement was made at the Court of Appeal and Dr. Rajan Mahtani was declared as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the cement factory, several publications and reports came out alleging foul over the Court of Appeal’s decision. However, most of these publications were baseless and were retracted soon from the media.