A Lawyer to an Anambra family has condemned the execution of a court judgement despite an appeal for a stay of execution on a land matter.
Counsel to the Okeke Omeligbo family of Umuonaga village, Agulu, Awka, Mr Chizoba. Enekwechi, has slammed the development for which an Awka High Court, presided over by Justice C. C. Okay, has fixed June 19, 2024, for hearing.
Enekwechi and his plaintiff clients, Christian Okechukwu Chinwuko, Chief Benson O.N. Ubaka, Ejiofor Chinwuko and Alex Ekwelu Chinwuko, say despite appealing the case and the appeal time running, the defendants obtained a lower court judgement and are executing the judgement.
Enekwechi also said: “As lawyers we are embarrassed because we have never seen where judgment is given, appeal filed, the time within which to file the appeal still running, a motion for stay of execution on a judgment and a date for hearing given, and the court officials go into execution of judgement without the case file.
“When confronted, court officials say they have not seen the case file,” claiming “we ought to have served the Registrar with the motion, but this is which absolutely wrong.
“All you need to do is to file your processes, and have your processes in the case file, that’s all.
“But only a day after, they demolished the property, (Anaocha land), and everything therein, including going beyond the stipulated area.They did not look at the survey plan even if they are going to execute it.”
The plaintiffs’ counsel lamented “We look at the scandalous nature of carrying out execution when there is an appeal and motion for stay of execution pending the determination of the stay of execution.
“The execution was done after we have filed our case for appeal and we have been given date to hear that. When was the order of execution signed because the Judge was not available.”
In the suit No. A/392/2017 and Notice No. A/666m/2024, the plaintiffs as mentioned above and the defendants that inuclude, Victoria Chidi-Akim and Chief Nwafor Obinka, (1st set of defendants) and Sunday Nweke, (2nd set of defendants), are in court over Anaocha land saga.
Mrs Edith Nwachukwu, the Assistant Chief Registrar(ACR) in a swift response said that the execution order given by the judge was carried out because she was not served the application for a date to hear motion for stay of execution of the judgment.
This is the contention of the plaintiffs that the ACR acted in error and out of practice which made the judge to sign the execution order.
Enekwechi insisted that the case file for write of execution was in the case file as such was out of practice for the ACR to demand a personal serve before the processes be respected.
