Supreme Court grants bail to Indian investor

The Supreme Court in Kampala has granted bail to Rajiv Kumar Sabharwal the Director of Global Wire Industries who has been in Luzira serving a jail term of four years on charges of embezzlement. 

Rajiv was 2020 charged in the Anti-Corruption Court with 53 charges of forgery, uttering a false document and embezzlement of more than Shs1 billion from the company’s account in Diamond Trust Bank (DTB) as the co-director of the Company.

He was accordingly in 2021 convicted and sentenced to serve four years in jail and ordered to pay a compensation of Shs556 million.

He appealed the conviction and subsequent sentence but he lost in the Court of Appeal.

Dissatisfied with the confirmation of his sentence, he appealed to the Supreme Court and applied for bail pending the determination of his appeal.

Through his lawyers led by Caleb Alaka, he says he suffers from severe hypersensitive heart disease, and is of an advanced age (60). Mr Alaka said that given Rajiv’s past history of hypersensitive crisis and upper gastral intestinal tract bleeding, prison conditions are not conducive for him.

He presented his friends; Mr Nicholas Kabagambe, an employee of Chains EEE limited, Mr Enock Nahabwe Rubanzana, and Mr Godfrey Sunday Iga, his LC1 chairperson in Maganjo Two Ward as his sureties.

Mr Alaka further told the court that if the applicant is released on bail he will not jump it as he was released by High Court and he complied with all bail conditions. Besides, the court heard that Rajiv was a first offender and wanted to settle the dispute with his partner and that he had a wife and children to look after.

He further said that the appeal has a high chance of succeeding in the Supreme Court.

The prosecution led by Stanley Baine opposed the application saying Rajiv has since been convicted and the conviction has been confirmed by the Court of Appeal so the chances of absconding were high once released on bail.

Mr Baine added that the medical report does not state that the facility at Luzira prison cannot handle the condition of the convict and that the health status was still the same as of April 2023 when he first applied for bail and was denied on grounds that he had no exceptional circumstances for grant of bail.

In her ruling on Thursday as a single Justice of the Supreme Court, Faith Mwondha said that looking at the medical report with their conclusion, one cannot keep Rajiv in prison unless they wanted him dead.

"It was noted in that very report that with past history of hypersensitive crisis and upper GIT bleeding, prison conditions are not conducive for him. Considering the above medical report and the conclusion, it was clear to me that a person in such a condition with his age of 60 years unless one wants him dead cannot remain in incarceration/ detention," she ruled.

The Judge has said that during the trial, he was granted bail and he kept reporting to court and that his family also would attend which shows a sense of responsibility.

She has also agreed with Rajiv’s lawyer that although he was ordered to pay a compensation of Shs556 million on top of a custodial sentence, the monies cannot be obtained when he is in prison.

“Also, regarding the issue of substantial delay, I cannot accept the submissions of counsel for the respondent that it was speculation. This is real. This is an appeal of June 2023 and yet the court has to handle appeals of 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. So it is a matter this court is obliged to take judicial notice of,” added Justice Mwondha.

She directed Rajiv to pay Shs10 million cash and bonded his sureties to Shs10 million not cash as a commitment that he doesn’t abscond from the trial.

According to Mwondha, one of the sureties Kabagambe will transfer his land title from the Anti-Corruption Court and deposit it in the Supreme Court within two weeks and Rajiv is further directed to report to the Registrar every after 14 days starting August 17, 2023.