The Environment and Land Court has ruled that a contested piece of land in Thika town belongs to the Telposta Pension Scheme.
The ruling comes after the scheme filed a suit in 2017 claiming ownership of the piece of land whose title was in the name of Mr Vicky Khadaka Liyai, who was also the first defendant in the case.
The National Land Commission and the Thika Land Registrar were the second and third defendants in the matter, respectively.
The Scheme maintained that the title that was in Liyai’s possession had been fraudulently obtained therefore should be declared null and void.
In submission to the court, Telposta Pension Scheme stated that it was the legitimate owner of the land that had been reserved for the construction of staff houses in 1950, by the then East African Posts and Telecommunication Corporation, the predecessor of the now defunct Kenya Posts and Telecommunication Corporation (KPTC).
In the Scheme’s filings to the Court, it stated that the Government carried out reforms in the telecommunications sector in the late 1990s, leading to the split of KPTC into Telkom Kenya Limited, the then Communications Commission of Kenya (now the Communications Authority of Kenya), and the Postal Corporation of Kenya.
This reorganisation of the sector by the Government of Kenya also led to the creation of the Telposta Pension Scheme to administer, manage, and pay the pension benefits of the former employees of KPTC, as well as employees of the three new entities.
The Scheme also stated that by way of Legal Notice 154 of 1998, the then Minister for Finance Simeon Nyachae, vested various real estate properties, inclusive of the Thika property, to the Scheme, to enable it to generate funding to remit monthly pension dues and other retirement benefits to its members.
In its ruling, the Environment and Land Court stated that it was satisfied with the evidence presented by the Scheme and directed that the allocation and issuance of the title in favour of the first defendant in the case, Liyai, was fraudulent, illegal, wrongful, null and void.
The court also directed that the Thika Land Registrar cancel that title deed and issue a new title in favour of the Telposta Pension Scheme.
“It is here ordered that the 3rd Defendant do cancel the title deed issued in favour of the 1st Defendant and thereafter issue a new title in favour of the Plaintiff,” Lady Justice Grace Kemei said in her ruling.
Kemei issued a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with rights of possession, advertising for sale, and selling by public auction the land LR NO 4953/36/36/IX and 4953/37/IX.
“Costs shall be in favour of the Plaintiff,” she ruled.
The court has also ordered, that in the interim, the defendants are to not interfere with the rights of possession of the property.
The Telposta Pension Scheme is currently engaged in several legal cases, as it continues to try and consolidate some of the real estate that it maintains has been fraudulently acquired, thereby impacting its obligations to its members.