Watujo Agro Produce Limited and Another v Centenary Rural Development Bank Limited (Miscellaneous Application 479 of 2023)

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

Holding

An application for leave to appear and defend a summary suit filed after default judgment has been entered is overtaken by events. Once default judgment is entered, applicants no longer have an opportunity to defend the suit unless the default judgment is first set aside. The application for leave to appear and defend was dismissed with costs.

Outcome

Application dismissed; default judgment stands

Facts

The Respondent bank sued the Applicants under summary procedure for recovery of UGX 627,554,460. The Applicants were served with summons on 12th December 2022 (per Respondent) or 19th December 2022 (per Applicants). The Applicants filed an application for unconditional leave to appear and defend on 10th January 2023. The Registrar entered default judgment against the Applicants on 15th February 2023. The Applicants argued they were not indebted to the stated amount, that the 1st Applicant had been repaying the loan in installments by mutual agreement with the Respondent due to Covid-19, and that the 2nd Applicant was wrongly joined as guarantor when the principal had not defaulted. The Respondent contended the application was filed out of time (29 days after service instead of the required 10 days) and that default judgment had already been entered.

Issues

1. Whether the applicants raise triable issues to warrant the granting of unconditional leave to appear and defend.
2. Whether the application was filed within the prescribed time limit.
3. Whether the default judgment entered on 15th February 2023 precludes the applicants from seeking leave to appear and defend.

Orders

• Application dismissed with costs to the Respondent.

Rules and key headnotes

Legislation cited (6)

• Civil Procedure Rules Order 36 Rule 3
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 36 Rule 4
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 52 Rule 1
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 52 Rule 2
• Civil Procedure Rules Order 52 Rule 3
• Contract Act s.68

Cases cited (2)

• Paul Kasagga and Another v Barclays Bank (U) Ltd (Miscellaneous Application No. 113 of 2008)
• China Railway No3 Engineering Group Ltd v Segken Services Ltd (Miscellaneous Application No. 161 of 2020)

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