THE Supreme Court has ordered the eviction of Dr Vivek Solanki from the state-of-the-art Trauma Centre Hospital as the ownership wrangle of the medical institution took another turn.
CHARLES LAITON SENIOR COURT REPORTER
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld an appeal by Streamsleigh Investment seeking to evict Autoband Investment from operating the medical institution despite a pending ownership wrangle of the same institution before High Court judge Justice Lavender Makoni.
In 2011 African Medical Investment (AMI) Plc operating under Streamsleigh Investment was evicted from number 15 Lanark Road Belgravia by Autoband Investment.
But early this year, the Supreme Court evicted Autoband Investment and returned the hospital to AMI saying the former was not entitled to operate the institution prompting a pending Constitutional challenge.
Following the ruling, Streamsleigh then sought to evict Autoband Investment by filing an urgent chamber application at the Supreme Court again which matter was deliberated upon by Justice Paddington Garwe.
“My reading of the appeal by the respondent [Autoband Investment] to the Constitutional Court does not suggest that the finding by this court that the order of eviction, directed as it was against AMI Plc, but executed against applicant, a separate legal entity, was irregular and therefore null and void, is impugned,” Justice Garwe said.
“On the basis of the papers presented before the Supreme Court, the position must be accepted that the order of spoliation granted in the magistrate Court was most irregular. Consequently both the order of eviction itself as well as the order allowing execution notwithstanding the noting of an appeal was, therefore, a nullity.
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“Accordingly it is ordered as follows : the application to execute the judgement of the Supreme Court in SC 43/14, notwithstanding the filing of an appeal to the Constitutional Court, be and is hereby granted. The respondent is to pay the costs of this application on the scale of legal practitioner client scale.”
After the judgement Dr Vivek Solanki vowed to continue fighting to reclaim the hospital.
“The Supreme Court has not made a determination on the ownership issue. All Zimbabweans knows I opened Trauma Centre in 1995 and have been in occupation since then, why does the Supreme Court say otherwise?” Solanki quizzed. “I cannot be evicted as I am Streamsleigh Investment. How did the Supreme Court come to a decision of ownership when the matter was not even before them and is still pending at the High Court?”
Solanki said the question the Supreme Court should have asked was: “Who is Trauma Centre and why was it removed by whites in 2010 by force and with the help of the State machinery.”
