Judge hits out at absent Rollers lawyer
Kabelo Boranabi | Friday March 10, 2017 14:50
The two groups appeared before the court yesterday, as the group led by former club chairman, Mookodi Seisa challenged the executive committee and directors of Township Holdings, Somerset Gobuiwang and Jagdish Shah for contempt of court.
Presiding Judge Leatile Dambe postponed the case to November as the current committee’s legal representative, Kgosietsile Ngakaagae was absent from court. She had unkind words for the absent lawyer.
“I wonder if the Law Society of Botswana is aware of this.
At the beginning of each Law Year, it is the judges who are labelled as lazy, but throughout the week attorneys have been absent from court.
This is a very unfortunate situation,” Dambe expressed her disappointment on Thursday. Dambe who has been handling the case since 2012 had previously ruled that the Society’s executive committee and not the commercial wing, Township Holdings should run all the affairs of the club.
She also ruled that the club should go for executive elections, but the Seisa group lost to the current committee in elections held in July 2015.
After the elections, Shah was endorsed as an investor and later appointed the club’s president in September 2016.
However late last year, Seisa and his group applied for a contempt of court order as they argued that the club is still run by the company rather than the Society as per the court ruling.
In the last hearing, the two groups were ordered to convene a meeting in October to sort their differences out of court. But the meeting did not take place as the lawyers representing Shah and the current committee did not avail themselves despite several attempts.
“We have made several attempts to hold the meeting as the court ruled, but the lawyers representing other defendants did not show up.
All attempts were made, but Ngakaagae and his clients could not commit themselves for any particular day and as you can see my Lord, they are not even present here today,” Gobuiwang’s legal representative, Thabiso Tafila told the court.
Dambe took a decision to postpone the hearing as she cited that all parties should be present during the proceedings.
The court also ruled that the two groups hold the meeting on an unspecified date and file the minutes of the meeting 14 days before the hearing.
“This (Shah and the current committee) is what they want, they wanted to buy time.
They will continue to benefit from the club’s resources,” said a source from Seisa’s camp. Rollers would be back in court on April 5, as they are involved in a transfer wrangle over the sale of former player, Lebogang Ditsele.
Ditsele left Rollers for South African club, Highlands Park at the beginning of the season for an undisclosed fee.
Eleven Men took Popa to court as they argued that the player was sold without their consent and demanded development fees.