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Haba Group (U) Ltd v Commissioner General Uganda Revenue Authority & Anor (Misc. Cause No. 83 of 2011)

High Court · [2012] UGHC 127 · 2012 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application for judicial review seeking certiorari to quash third party agency notices and other relief
Decision
Application dismissed on preliminary grounds without consideration of the substantive merits

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

The High Court dismissed the application for judicial review without reaching the merits. The Court found that the consent judgment relied upon by the applicant as the foundation for the application did not exist in the court registry and investigations indicated it was forged. An application based on an alleged forged judgment constitutes an abuse of court process and cannot be sustained. The Court also upheld a preliminary objection that the Commissioner Domestic Taxes was wrongly joined as a respondent in his personal capacity.

Outcome

Application dismissed on preliminary grounds without consideration of the substantive merits

Facts

Haba Group (U) Limited applied for judicial review seeking to quash third party agency notices issued by the Commissioner General URA. The applicant alleged that URA had frozen its bank accounts at Orient Bank to collect taxes amounting to UGX 20,121,239,094. The applicant relied on an alleged consent judgment dated 6 October 2010 between itself and the Attorney General which purportedly stated that compensation sums were not to be subjected to any taxes. During the pendency of the application, URA investigated the authenticity of the consent judgment. The Registrar and Deputy Registrar of the High Court Civil Division confirmed in writing that the alleged consent judgment did not originate from the civil registry and that the purported signature of the deputy registrar was not authentic. The consent judgment could not be located in the court's records.

Issues

  1. Whether the respondents' decision to issue third party agency notices offended the rules of natural justice by not granting a fair hearing to the applicant.
  2. Whether the third party agency notices issued against the applicant's bankers were justified in the circumstances.
  3. Whether the application was based on a forged consent judgment and thus constituted an abuse of court process.

Orders

  • Application dismissed.
  • Preliminary objection upheld that the Commissioner Domestic Taxes was improperly joined as a party.

Rules and key headnotes

Judicial Review — Abuse of Court Process — Application Based on Forged Document
An application for judicial review that is premised upon an alleged forged judgment constitutes an abuse of court process and is not tenable before the court, justifying dismissal without consideration of the merits.
Administrative Law — Uganda Revenue Authority — Personal Liability of Officers
Under section 12 of the Uganda Revenue Authority Act Cap 196, an employee of the authority shall not, in his or her personal capacity, be liable in civil or criminal proceedings in respect of an act or omission done in good faith in the performance of his or her functions, and thus the Commissioner Domestic Taxes cannot be sued in his personal capacity.
Tax Law — Competent Parties — Commissioner General as Proper Party
The Commissioner General of the Uganda Revenue Authority is a competent party to a suit, and if the Commissioner General can sue to recover tax, he or she can be sued by a party unhappy with tax assessments made by the Commissioner General or officers under his or her control.

Legislation cited (3)

Cases cited (5)

  • Bushenyi Commercial Agencies and Obadiah Ntebekaine v Commissioner Domestic Taxes (Misc. Cause No. 154 of 2010)
  • Commissioner General URA v Meera Investments Ltd (Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 22 of 2007)
  • Makerere University v St. Mark Education Institute Ltd and Others (High Court Civil Suit No. 378 of 1993)
  • BITAITANA V KANAMURA (1977) HCB
  • Mark Okello v David Wasajja (Civil Reference No. 54 of 2005)

Full judgment

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

Haba Group (U) Ltd v Commissioner General Uganda Revenue Authority & Anor (Misc. Cause No. 83 of 2011) [2012] UGHC 127 (9 July 2012)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.