A tycoon has made a passionate appeal to the High Court to save his lifetime investments from being auctioned following a nasty divorce case that has drained his coffers.
Suresh Kantaria hit the headlines in 2010 after a court ordered him to pay his ex-wife Sh100 million for upkeep following the divorce.
The Court of Appeal would later overturn that judgment in 2015, replacing it with an order that Kantaria pays his former wife Mradula Kantaria Sh350,000 per month for upkeep. He has since defaulted.
And now, the auctioneer’s hammer is hanging over his head after the court in November ordered that his properties be auctioned to offset the upkeep debt, which stands at Sh40 million.
To that effect, High Court deputy registrar Saitabau Lesootia ordered on November 4, 2024, that Kantaria’s properties including two houses and a plot in South C and another parcel of land in Gigiri be sold by auction.
The houses and plot in South C are valued at Sh28 million while the value of the land in Gigiri ranges between Sh300 million and Sh500 million.
The court appointed Joseph Gikonyo of Garam Auctioneers to conduct the public auction of the properties and directed that he takes immediate possession of the same.
But because Kantaria had used the South C land as guarantee for a loan at Prime Bank, the court ordered that the Sh15 million loan be settled alongside the accruing interests at the rate of 13 per cent per annum.
“That upon full settlement of all the above, the balance shall be held by Harit Sheth Advocates upon auction sale, the subject suit properties shall be freed and discharged from all encumbrances,” Losootia ruled.
It is the ruling that threatens to bring Kantaria’s empire crumbling down as he is set to remain with nothing, given all proceeds will be put in an escrow account from where the former wife will be withdrawing her Sh350,000 monthly upkeep.
He has appealed before High Court judge Hillary Chemitei to intervene and stop the auction order lest he lose all his lifetime investments.
The appeal dated November 19 was filed under a certificate of urgency and was due to be heard on December 9 but the court did not sit. Consequently, the hearing of the appeal was pushed to March next year, much to the chagrin of Kantaria.
He has now demanded that the judge recuses himself from the matter so that the file is placed before another judge for expeditious hearing before the auctioneer’s hammer falls on his property.
“When Justice Chemitei set down my application for mention on March 26, 2025, he knew I was seeking to stay the orders for sale of properties set for January 21, 2025. If my application is not heard, I stand to lose my entire lifetime investments which I need to remain alive,” Kantaria says in an application for the judge’s recusal.
Judge Chemitei has since directed the parties to file and serve their affidavits on the recusal bid.
It is Kantaria’s case that the judge has overlooked obvious errors by the deputy registrar, which he says have overturned the Court of Appeal judgment.
In his view, the deputy registrar cannot proceed with a ruling on the settlement of the terms of sale of the properties if any party in dispute raises an objection.
“The execution proceedings ought to have been before a judge since December 18, 2022 but this has not happened,” Kantaria says, citing civil procedure rules of Order 49, rule 5 of the High Court.
He says the court cannot order all his investments to be sold and all proceeds kept in an escrow account for the former wife against the Court of Appeal order that directed the proceeds be shared in the ratio of 3:1 in his favour.
Kantaria’s fight with his former wife has dragged in court for 27 years with the ex-wife now telling the court to dismiss all the applications by her former husband so that the matter comes to a conclusion.
Mradula says her upkeep payments have risen to Sh40 million since the Court of Appeal judgment in April 2015.
“The respondent has also refused
to transfer to me my 25 per cent
shares of the properties as ordered
by the Court of Appeal, nine years
after the judgment,” Mradula says
in her affidavits.
