The High Court awarded five petitioners from Diani in Kwale County Ksh5.8 billion as compensation for 317.16 acres of land whose title was revoked.
In her ruling, Justice Dora Chepkwony noted that Rahimkhan Afzalkhan, Shamshad Afzalkhan, Daniel Mwangi, Pauline Mwongela and Sayed Mushtaq Hussain were owed for the benefits they would have gained if they were still occupying the land.
According to the Nation, the Court of Appeal directed the High Court to establish the compensation owed to the five Diani residents.
The High Court stated it was satisfied with a valuation report by a valuer appointed by the president of the Institute of Surveyors of Kenya as per the court directive.
Justice Chepkwony further acknowledged that the survey took into account the change of use of the land from exclusively agricultural to partly commercial, residential and agricultural.
Further, the judge explained that the settlement could not be backdated since the decision by the Chief Land Registrar, the Attorney General and the then-Commissioner of Lands) was wrong and by backdating the compensation the court would be supporting their misconduct.
The respondents told the court it would be an injustice to value the land at its worth in 2012 as opposed to 1979 because the current commercial developments were not in place then.
The court heard that the land was never imperatively acquired by the government, but the Chief Land Registrar, the Attorney-General and the Commissioner of Land transferred the land to a third party, Kasika Developers in 1978.
Records at the land registry indicate that Rahimkhan, Mwangi and Mwongela were still the legal owners of the disputed 328.5 acres of land, pointing to its illegal acquisition by third parties with the help of the government.
Then Kwale land registrar Evans Marwanga argued at the High Court that Mwangi, who was then a district agricultural officer, abused his office by obtaining crucial information that helped the petitioners hijack a planned purchase of the land by Kasika Developers from its original owner, Reaby Eleanor Vere Wailes.
In 1978 Wailes engaged Rahimkhan (now deceased), Mwangi, Mwongela and Hussain in a sale transaction of the land for Ksh140,000.
The four were barred from transacting on the land and ordered to surrender their title, which they declined.
