After more than a decade of legal fights and court battles, Dr. Rajan Mahtani finally received justice at the Court of Appeal. This justice came for Portland Cement Zambia, a noted cement manufacturing factory which was contested by two big business houses in Zambia, one of them being Dr. Rajan Mahtani. Initially, the case was registered at the Lusaka High Court by Dr. Rajan Mahtani himself after he claimed that the factory was illegally taken over from him. After this, several court proceedings took place including sharing of all documents, evidences and testimonials related to the court. Despite these evidences, the judges overseeing the case were not able to provide justice and as a result, the case remained pending for more than a decade. The final judgement provided by the judge was at the hands of Justice Nkonde, who gave the final judgement during the month of May, 2018. However, this final judgement was extremely controversial as it said that Ventriglias were only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement. As a result, Dr. Rajan Mahtani was left with no choice 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. According to this judgement, 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 is the minority shareholder without any legal ownership over the factory. This decision from the Court of Appeal aligned with the original shareholders agreement established in 2007. Based on this decision from the Court of Appeal, it is clear that Dr. Rajan Mahtani is the legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory. A timeline of three months from the date of the judgement has been given during which all share sales related activities must complete.
