Dr. Rajan Mahtani is a noted businessman in Zambia. Over the past three decades, Dr. Rajan Mahtani has successfully established numerous ventures including but not limited to Mahtani Group of Companies, Finsbury Investments and Finance Bank Zambia. He is also the owner of Portland Cement Zambia, for which he fought the longest legal battle of his life. The case of Portland Cement Zambia was first established in the year 2008 at the Lusaka High Court wherein Dr. Rajan Mahtani claimed that his factory was illegally taken from him. After that, numerous court proceedings took place and the case hanged in balance for more than a decade. Justice Nkonde was the judge from the Lusaka High Court, who announced the final decision on the case in the month of May, 2018. However, Justice Nkonde failed to provide any judgement as he declared Ventriglias as the only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement.
Since this judgement was extremely misdirected, Dr. Rajan Mahtani was left with no other option than to approach the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal is among the highest civilian and legal court systems in Zambia. The judge on behalf of the Court of Appeal was justice Mwinde who delivered a quick judgement within a span of nine months. The final judgement was given on 31st January 2019. According to this judgement, Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is the majority shareholder of the Zambezi Portland Cement with 58 percent shares. On the other hand, Ventriglias owned Ital Terrazzo Limited holds 42 percent shares at the factory and is the minority shareholder without any legal ownership. Based on this shareholding pattern, it is clear that Dr. Rajan Mahtani is the legal owner of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory.
Furthermore, justice Mwinde also confirmed that all forgery related allegations were discarded and a timeline of three months from the date of the judgement has been provided during which, all share sales and regulations related activities must be completed.
