Residents of Muthurwa Estate in Nairobi County have been put on notice to vacate their houses following a ruling by High Court Judge Isaac Lenaola.
According to a notification published in a local daily by the Kenya Railways Staff Retirement Benefits Scheme (KRSRBS), the 359 tenants are to vacate the houses before April 30, failure to which they would forcefully be evicted and face prosecution for contempt of court.
The residents have been in constant wrangles with the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) - owners of the estate - who wanted to demolish the houses.
In 2015, occupants moved to court to stop KRC from wrecking their houses, claiming that the Corporation had gravely violated their rights after cutting off their water supply and destroying some latrines in the area.
However, Judge Lenaola ordered the tenants to vacate the houses in December and gave them an ultimatum of four months.
KRC had partially demolished some houses and further threatened to bring down all the houses occupied by the residents for alleged purposes of sub-division and sale of the premises, construction of a commercial business park and other commercial developments.
The action prompted the tenants to go to court in 2010, and though at first the court ruled that the occupants' rights had been violated, the ruling in 2015 directed the residents to move.
