Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani is a noted businessman and philanthropist in Zambia with several successful companies in his portfolio. He is the owner of Finsbury Investments and Mahtani Group of Companies among others. Despite having a successful business empire, Dr. Rajan Mahtani continues facing challenging when establishing new businesses. One of the examples is the case of Portland Cement Zambia for which, ownership battle went for more than a decade. The higher Court of Appeal reversed the decision from the previous Lusaka High Court and announced Dr. Mahtani as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory.

Despite this transparent decision, the higher Court of Appeal’s decision was once again challenged by the Ventriglia family. An appeal was made at the Supreme Court Zambia and a bench of three SC judges was established for evaluating this claim. After evaluation, the Supreme Court bench gave the verdict that the claim from the Ventriglia did not qualify due to technical and legal aspect. The Ventriglia family was required to submit its appeal against previous court decision within 14 days of the court verdict itself. Since the verdict from the higher Court of Appeal came on 31st January 2019, the, Ventriglia family failed to comply with this critical legal requirement and submitted their case only after 1.5 years of the higher Court of Appeal’s decision. Based on this aspect alone, the claim by the Ventriglia family is liable for rejection. Furthermore, the Supreme Court bench also concluded that the circumstances surrounding the claim were questionable and the Ventriglia family was unable to provide any relevant evidences for establishing their ground on the claim. As a result, the Supreme Court bench concluded that they did not have any jurisdiction over the claim by the Ventriglia family which is liable for rejection. Based on these evaluations, the Supreme Court bench concluded that the claim from the Ventriglias related to Portland Cement case should be rejected.