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Kisii court fines former town clerk Sh300,000

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Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 15:47

A Kisii court yesterday fined the recently transferred Kisii town clerk Maina Chira Sh300,000 for contempt. Chira also risks six months jail term should he fail to pay the fine. Chira was ordered to pay the money by Justice Ruth Sitati after he failed to appear in court in a case in which a director of Tenderwood Industries Limited had sued the council for illegal demolition.

The director John Speke Mong’are had sued the landlord Rispa Kerubo Onsase and Chira on behalf of the council over illegal demolition and eviction from his rented house in Kisii town. The court also fined Onsase to pay Sh100,000 for contempt or serve three months in jail.

Mong’are had sought interim orders of injunction restraining Chira on behalf of the local authority and Onsase, their agents and servants from demolishing or damaging the permanent structures on the plot Kisii/Municipality Block II/27 but the two ignored the order and went on with the demolition.

In her ruling Sitati said the court had considered circumstances on behalf of each of the two and said contemptuous acts committed by each of the two brought the dignity of the court into dispute. “The law demands that the court orders be obeyed by whoever is required to obey. Take orders whether wrong or otherwise,” Sitati said. “And until each and until orders are either vacated or set aside.

Accordingly for the above reasons Rispar Kerubo Onsase and Jim Maina Chira are fined Sh100,000 and Sh300,000 respectively in default serve three and six months jail terms in that order,” she added. The Judge gave the two seven days to pay the fines. She also gave them 14 days right of appeal. On July, the court in Kisii issued a warrant of arrest for Chira who was transferred to Ijara Town Council for his failure to appear in court.