A criminal case over a land dispute involving the family of the late Uasin Gishu district supreme chief Kibor arap Tarai colony will go ahead after the Eldoret High Court refused to stay the hearing. .
The land is said to have been sold to Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, and a separate case involving Sudi and the Tarai family has been filed at the Land and Environment Court in Eldoret.
Six members of the family of a late colonial chieftain have been dealt a blow after the Eldoret High Court refused to stay hearing a criminal case against them over a disputed portion of 2,000 acres of land.
At the center of the controversy is Eunice Tarai, the late Tarai's daughter-in-law. Eunice has been accused by six of her in-laws of selling the Tarai family land to Sudi without the knowledge and consent of the late chief's daughter Nancy Tarai, who is the custodian of a multi-billion shilling fortune. ing.
The 2,000-acre land is valued at Sh3.5 billion and is located in Keses, near Moi University's main campus.
Members of the Tarai family have filed an application in the High Court on April 4, 2023, seeking to disqualify the Magistrates Court from hearing criminal cases arising from civil proceedings over land disputes. .
In the petition, the six accused their sister-in-law Eunice Tarai of malicious acts, including dragging her to court for malicious damage to property, which they said were false.
On Tuesday, Judge Robert Wananda struck out the motion as without merit. He said the court was not satisfied with the appellant's reasoning that the High Court should strike out the criminal case pending before the magistrate's court.
“Accordingly, it is my finding that the appellants have not presented sufficient evidence at this stage to demonstrate that there was malice or unreasonableness in the decision to prosecute them in the lower court.” Judge Wananda ruled.
The court found that the reasons put forward by the appellants were not strong enough to justify the issuance of an order suspending proceedings in the magistrates' court.
The ruling allowed the criminal case to proceed to trial.
In the criminal case, Nancy Tarai, Margaret Tarai, Lydia Tarai, Simon Tarai, Philemon Kiptoo, and Collins Tarai are charged with destroying property on 2,000 acres of disputed land on March 22, 2023. It was done.
According to the indictment, the disputed land is near the Moi University campus in Uasin Gishu County.
The indictment states that the defendant, along with others not present in court, unlawfully damaged fence poles and barbed wire belonging to Eunice Tarai, valued at Sh674,375.
Eunice allegedly illegally sold the disputed land to Kapseret MP without the knowledge and consent of the property's manager, Nancy Tarai.
The land dispute case is still ongoing at the Land and Environment Court in Eldoret.
