Court lifts warrant of arrest for acting Kenya Railways MD

Kisumu Environment and Land Court Judge Antony Ombwayo has lifted a warrant of arrest order issued against Acting Managing Director of Kenya Railways (KR) Phillip Mainga.

Mainga had been cited for contempt of court for failure to comply with court orders and to pay a fine of Sh100,000 by last month.

On Wednesday, KR's lawyer Tom Miteyi and Company advocates dashed to the Court and paid the fine. The Court then lifted the arrest orders.

Mainga got into trouble after a Kisumu based businessman Hayer Bishen Singh and Sanarnger Sigh moved to court to defend alleged demolitions of their property on the orders of KR.

Hayer and Singh claimed that the demolitions that were done on the block 6/292 and block 6/293 on their parcel of land near Jua-Kali area was not done according to procedure.

Consequently, they moved to Court on November 7, last year and sought for restrain orders baring KR from developing the plots until the case is heard inter parties.

They also asked the Court to block KR from further demolitions in the mentioned plots.

But upon physical checks, they found that KR had heeded none of the petitions and was still carrying on with developments at the disputed parcel of land.

Hayer and his brother then trooped back to corridors of justice to seek further legal redress before Justice Ombwayo on 6 February last month.

Justice Ombwayo then fined KR MD Sh100,000 failure to which he is jailed for one month. But still, upon confirmation, KR had done nothing to comply with the edict.

On March 4, when the matter came up again in Court through the client's lawyer Jeff Yogo, the Court issued a warrant of arrest for the defiant KR MD.

Earlier, the Court wondered why they had taken such a long time to respond to the orders and cited them for contempt.

The developments came after the defunct Kenya Railways (KR) Corporation through the national government donated 23 acres of land to Kisumu County for industrial growth.

KR argued in Court through its lawyer that the land claimed by the Singh's were part of KR land and that the government had the due rights to reclaim its assets.

Miteyi argued the claimants were irregularly allocated the disputed parcels that the State wanted back for fresh developments.

The County has decided to use the land to put up a new modern business park named after President Uhuru as 'Uhuru Business park'.