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A former military man has petitioned the Commander in Chief (C-in-C) of the Defence Forces to intervene over his unfair dismissal after attempts to seek court refuge hit a snag.
Vincent Karani Asimuge has for the last 15 years been seeking intervention of the court to compel the Ministry of Defence and the Attorney General to pay for damages after he was “unfairly dismissed from the service”.
His attempts however lies in the balance after his court file which was being handled in Busia, Nairobi and Kisumu courts went missing without a trace.
Asimuge moved to court on December 6, 2004 and sued the Ministry of Defense and the Attorney General (AG) after he was dismissed shortly after resuming duty from a short leave.
On March 27, 1980, he applied for a month’s leave which he was to resume towards the end of the month of April. However, on arrival at the Gilgil Fifth Battalion Military Camp where he had been deployed, he was stopped by the Dock Clerk at the Military office.
Asimuge was informed that his immediate boss (OC Commandant, a Mr Kasila) and the Lieutenant Colonel one (Mr Mbau) had received instructions from ‘above’ not to allow him back on grounds that his service number was ‘bad’.
He was told that he was not supposed to be on duty and was turned away without a termination or dismissal letter.
Prior to the incident, he had served with the military for two years but was dismissed without any salary.
He wrote several demand letters to the Department of Defence (DoD) which were received but were never answered. Asimuge wrote a Notice to Sue to the former AG Amos Wako in June 19, 2004 who also failed to respond.
Consequently, he instituted court proceedings for the two state departments at the High Court in Busia. However, the matter has never reached a logical conclusion after his file was transferred to the Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC) in Kisumu. The matter was later referred back to Busia.
The frequent transfers of his file made him lose trace of his file. In a letter dated July 2011, PCSC wrote to the Registrar to help ascertain the whereabouts of the file.
His file was recovered and Justice Francis Tuiyott referred to the ELRC court in Kisumu before it got lost again at the Kisumu court.
The father of eight laments that he is unable to know the outcome of the court since his attempts to follow the matter on the day of hearing flopped.
He now wants President Uhuru Kenyatta as the C-in-C intervene to ensure that he is able to get compensation for the tribulations he has gone through for nearly two decades.
