The government is set to evacuate Nairobi residents residing in Woodley/Joseph Kang'ethe Estates after the Court of Appeal ruled in its favor on Friday, November 8.
"EACC will proceed to execute the ELC Judgement, including requiring the appellant, his agents, tenants, and/or any other persons currently occupying the recovered property to deliver vacant possession for handover to the government," the statement of EACC read.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) won a case against private developers who owned over 100 residential houses in Woodley/Joseph Kang'ethe Estate in Nairobi.
Appellate Judges Francis Tuiyott, Jessie Lesiit, and Grace Ngenye-Macharia declared that the process used by the various private individuals to acquire over 100 residential houses in the estate was fraudulent, wrongful, null, and void.
The Estate, comprising prime residential houses standing on about one acre each, has an estimated market value of Ksh1 billion.
The Court of Appeal was upholding a previous Judgement by Judge Okong’o of the Environment and Land Court (ELC) in the lead file case in multiple recovery suits filed by EACC against private developers who grabbed residential properties at Woodley Estate belonging to Nairobi City County Government.
The appeal case was filed by Paul Moses Ng'ethe. 52 other recovery suits involving multiple properties have been pending before the lower court, awaiting Saturday's decision of the Court of Appeal.
The case was originally filed at the High Court on October 6, 2006, by the defunct Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), predecessor of the current EACC, and subsequently transferred to the Environment and Land Court.
In its judgement the court ruled in favor of the EACC and issued orders declaring the title held by Paul Moses Ng’ethe invalid, null, and void for all intents and purposes for having been acquired fraudulently and wrongfully.
Justice Okong’o further directed the Registrar of Lands to cancel and expunge from the Nairobi Land Registry all the wrongful entries relating to the property.
He further placed a permanent injunction restraining the appellant, whether by himself, his servants, or agents, from dealing with the grabbed property otherwise than by way of surrender to the Government.
The judgment led Ng'ethe to file an appeal before the Court of Appeal, which the Appellate Court dismissed for lack of merit and confirmed the entire judgment of the Environment and Land Court.
Following the judgment residents living in the estates have been directed to voluntarily vacate the houses or be evicted by EACC.
