General Parts Uganda Limited and Another v Non-Performing Assets Recovery Tribunal (NPART) (Civil Application 49 of 2003)

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

A single judge dismissed an application for an interim order to restrain the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Tribunal from hearing a matter, pending disposal of a related application. The court found that the underlying Civil Appeal No. 48/2003 was incompetent because it had been filed without the leave of the Tribunal or the court as required by law. Consequently the interim application, being based on an incompetent appeal, was itself incompetent, and the court had no jurisdiction to entertain it. The judge noted that, under rule 52(1)(c) of the Court of Appeal Rules, a single judge lacks power to strike out an appeal, that power being reserved to the full bench.

Outcome

Application dismissed as incompetent; the court had no jurisdiction to entertain it

Facts

The applicants sought an interim order to restrain the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Tribunal (NPART) from hearing Tribunal Application No. 004/2003, scheduled for 10 July 2003, until Civil Application No. 48/2003 pending in the Court of Appeal was disposed of. The stated basis for both applications was that Hon. Justice Patrick Tabaro, Chairman of the Tribunal, had allegedly displayed bias against the applicants in an earlier High Court matter and should be stopped from presiding over the Tribunal application. The second applicant, managing director of the first applicant, represented both applicants in person, stating his lawyers had declined to act. Because the order sought would restrain a judge from exercising his jurisdiction, the judge directed that the intended ex parte application be served on the respondent. Counsel for the respondent raised a preliminary point that the application was incompetent because the underlying Civil Appeal No. 48/2003 had been filed without the leave required by law, which the applicant conceded had not been obtained.

Issues

1. Whether an application for an interim order can stand where the appeal upon which it is based was filed without the leave required by law.
2. Whether a single judge has authority to strike out a notice of appeal or an appeal.

Orders

• The application is dismissed.
• Costs of this application will abide the result in Civil Application No. 48/2003.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (4)

• Civil Procedure Act s.77
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 40
• Court of Appeal Rules Rule 39
• Court of Appeal Rules Rule 52(1)(c)

Cases cited (2)

• Balimoria & Another vs. T.D. Balimoria (1962) EA 198
• G.R. Mandavia vs. Rathan Singh (1962) 730

The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.