Vijay Construction (Proprietary) Limited vs Eastern European Engineering Limited |13 October 2022
Court of Appeal dismisses one application and grants a second
On its first day of hearing yesterday, the Court of Appeal dismissed a stay of application brought by Eastern European Engineering Limited in the case of Vijay Construction (Proprietary) LimitedvsEastern European Engineering Limited.
The court led by Justice Winston Anderson, Justice Carl Singh and Justice William Young, gave their ruling after a 15-minute deliberation following arguments on the application by both sides.
Counsel Serge Rouillon who is representing Eastern European Engineering Limited (EEEL) had questioned the involvement of a new Court of Appeal to hear the case, arguing there was sufficient local authority to decide on the matter. He also argued that the matter was a constitutional one, and should therefore be heard by the Constitutional Court and not be before the Court of Appeal.
“The whole basis of this application is questionable,” he stated in court, adding that the Court of Appeal did not have power to listen to a constitutional matter.
In his argument, counsel for Vijay Construction (Proprietary) Limited, Bernard Georges said the Court Of Appeal was empowered to take the case under Article 46.7 of the Seychelles constitution, stating “you are actually granted jurisdiction and are perfectly constitutionally empowered to take all the constitutional issues in this application”.
After hearing both sides, as well as the representative from the office of the Attorney General who was also asked to weigh in on the matter, the Court of Appeal ruled that the application be dismissed but stated its reasons for such a ruling will be given at a later date.
In the second application brought by Vijay Construction (Proprietary) Limited,their second counsel, Leon Kuschke, was requesting that they be permitted to submit additional grounds in their appeal.
EEEL’s legal counselBasil Hoareau objected on the ground that since these issues were not raised “in the court below then the appellant is stopped from raising the points now”.
Mr Hoareau added that that the court must rely on the affidavit of facts and although he was not stating the appellant should not amend their grounds “this should be done cautiously or exercised more sparingly”. He pointed out to the court that the issues raised by Mr Kuschke were issues raised by the President of the Court of Appeal and the appellant wasnow adopting those as it own.
In the second application, the Court Of Appeal granted the application for the submission of additional grounds by Vijay Construction (Proprietary) Limited
A new Court of Appeal was sworn in on Monday to listen to the appeal by Vijay Construction after it lost against Eastern European Engineering Ltd (EEEL), in regards to the latter’s awarded lawsuit.
It relates to US $22 million awarded to EEEL after Vijay Construction (Proprietary) Limited broke the terms of a contract it signed for the development of the Savoy Hotel in 2011.
It is to be noted that Vijay Construction Ltd has been in and out of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the Constitutional court since 2020 following the Supreme Court’s ruling to award compensation to EEEL for breach of contract.
In 2020 Vijay Construction lost its final appeal and in 2021 asked to set the case aside and the Court of Appeal obliged. Now a new court is hearing the appeal all over again.
Patsy Canaya