The widow of former Finance Minister Arthur Magugu has scored her first victory after the High Court allowed her to join Director of Criminal Investigations Amin Mohammed in a Sh17 billion land dispute in Mutiaga North.
In a ruling on Thursday, August 1, High Court Judge Lawrence Mugambi allowed Margaret Magugu to appear before the Director of Public Prosecutions Lenson Ingonga and the Director of Investigations over the alleged failure to conclude an investigation into the alleged forgery of land documents.
The court agreed with Ms Magugu’s argument that the DCI and DPP had prejudiced her constitutional rights by failing to act on a complaint she made to the police in 2018.
The Director of Investigations joined the dispute by failing to cancel the deed plans despite recommendations by his staff that they be recalled and cancelled as they had been fraudulently obtained.
The widow, through her lawyer, Mr JM Kariuki, is alleging that Karura Investments Ltd has illegally divided part of her 82.4 acre land in Mutaiga North. Karura Investments Ltd, which claims to be the owner of the land, through its senior counsel, Mr Ahmednasir Abdullahi, sought dismissal of the suit, alleging that this was another attempt by Magugu to litigate the matter after a previous attempt failed. According to evidence presented in court, Magugu obtained the title deed to the 101 acre land in Mutaiga from Jores Ltd on December 16, 1982.
Magugu used the land registered under LR number 12422/9 as collateral when his company, Commercial Commodities Ltd, borrowed Sh25 million from Grindlays Bank, now trading as Stanbic.
In November 1988, Magugu instructed the surveyor to divide the land into two parcels of 88.6 acres and 12.9 acres, a process that took five years and on 25th October 1993 the land was finally divided into LR No. 12422/203 of 12.9 acres and LR No. 12422/204 of 88.6 acres.
However, that same morning, another application was made for a larger partition, which was completed in three and a half hours. This application was given the same account number, 23380, as the application made by Mr Magugu five years ago.
The larger land was divided into two and one was registered in Magugu’s name as a 6.1-acre plot, with the land deed completed 11 years later in 2004. The other 82.4-acre plot was almost immediately registered to Karura Investments Ltd, with the land deed completed the same day, October 25, 1993. Magugu said his family became aware of the change when they filed their inheritance lawsuit.
