Court discharges Mantrac, Flour Mill directors of contempt

A Sekonde High Court, presided over by Justice Edward Asante, has described as unmeritorious a contempt application brought against the Managing Director of Mantrac Ghana Limited and four other executive directors of the Takoradi Flour Mills Limited (TFM).

Consequently, the court has dismissed the application and awarded a cost of GH¢200 each to the five defendants, who were hauled before the court by the management of Mechanical Lloyd Company Limited, plaintiff in the case.

The defendants are, Mr. Emmad Adeeb, Managing Director of Mantrac Ghana Limited, Mr. Serge Bakalian, Executive Director of TFM, Mr. Michelle Ghajar, Operating Manager of TFM, Mr. Percy Botwe, Office Manager of TFM, and Mr. Kwabena Asiedu, Regional Manager of TFM.

The decision of the plaintiff company (Mechanical Lloyd) to file the application for contempt against the defendants was based on what the plaintiff believes was disrespect for a Supreme Court order.

According to the plaintiff, the Supreme Court had vacated an earlier injunction granted by Justice Kofi Akrowiah barring it from carrying out any activity on the office complex building it was putting up on the Takoradi Casuarina Belt.

Notwithstanding the Supreme Court order, the defendants went ahead and filed another fresh application for an injunction at the same High Court, on the grounds that the cable lying beneath the office complex in question by the plaintiff company was wrongful. It is as a result of this development that the plaintiff company (Mechanical Lloyd) brought the application for contempt against the five defendants at another High Court.

In moving the motion for the contempt, the plaintiff asked the court to punish the defendants on the grounds that the latter’s application for a fresh injunction was not only unnecessary, but an affront to the earlier order of the Supreme Court. But counsel for the defendants argued, however, that his clients could not be punished for following what he described as a due process.

To counsel Ernest Arko, who represented the defendants, both the TFM and Mantrac had entrusted the conduct of the court case to their solicitors. As a result, the hands of his clients were clean in the application for contempt filed by the plaintiff company. That apart, his clients had also not disobeyed any Supreme Court ruling in the filing of papers.

For that reason, the court should throw out the contempt application against his clients. In delivering his ruling, Judge Asante pointed out that there could only be contempt if there was a willful disobedience. According to the Judge, the mere filing of papers could not be tantamount to contempt, even if the papers were unnecessarily filed.

Therefore, the application was totally unmeritorious and accordingly dismissed. A cost of GH¢2,000 each was awarded in favour of the five defendants against the plaintiff company, bringing the sum to GH¢10,000.

The contempt motion, which has been dismissed by Justice Edward Asante as unmeritorious, comes after the management of Mantrac and TFM jointly brought a similar contempt motion against the management of Mechanical Lloyd and the electricity company for earlier defying an order by the Justice Kofi Akrowiah High Court not engage in an activity on an office complex being put up by Mechanical Lloyd on the Takoradi Casuarina Belt.

The said motion jointly filed by the plaintiffs (Mantrac and TFM) succeeded in committing the Chairman of Mechanical Lloyd, Mr. Terry Darko, and former Western Regional Manager of the Electricity Company of Ghana, Mr. Ben Kofi Afewu, forcontempt.