VICE-PRESIDENT Kembo Mohadi, who has been embroiled in
post-divorce lawsuits with his former wife Tambudzani Bhudagi (nee Muleya), has
again approached the High Court seeking condonation for filing his heads of
argument out of time in a matter in which his estranged wife is challenging the
procedure adopted by a Harare Civil Court magistrate to slap her with a
contempt of court order.
However, Mohadi’s lawyer, Reliance Ndou, has pleaded with
the court not to punish his client for the late filing of the heads of
argument, saying he had mistakenly filed them in another matter since the
couple has had a plethora of cases pending before the courts.
“This is an application for the late filing of the heads of
argument by the applicant (Mohadi) in HC9929/18 out of time to be condoned and
for the bar currently operating against the applicant to be uplifted,” Ndou
said.
“The parties in casu have been embroiled in several legal
cases. The second respondent (Muleya) in HC8991/18 filed an application for
review against the decision of the first respondent (magistrate Noah Gwatidzo).
In HC9929/18, the second respondent filed another application for review
against the decision by the second respondent. When the second respondent filed
her heads in HC9929/18, they were mistakenly placed in the file for HC8991/18.
“I only realised this mistake when the prescribed time
period within which the applicant’s heads of argument, that is on June 6, 2019,
were supposed to be filed, and I then filed the applicant’s heads of argument
on June 10, 2019 out of time. I humbly implore this honourable court not to
visit my mistake on the applicant as it was not of his own making.”
Through her lawyers Scanlen and Holderness, Tambudzani
filed for review on October 2, 2018 following Mohadi’s other application at the
Civil Court seeking to have her charged with contempt of court for violating
conditions of a protection order granted against her in September of the same
year.
Tambudzani argued that the magistrate had adopted an
irregular procedure when he allowed Mohadi to file a fresh contempt of court
application against her without first seeking rescission of a default judgment
that had earlier been entered dismissing the same matter.
In the latest application, Mohadi cited Gwatidzo,
Tambudzani, Irene Mohadi, Abigail Mohadi and one Malcom Ambrose as respondents.
In August last year, Mohadi applied for the couple’s
divorce matter to be transferred from Bulawayo to Harare High Court, where a
determination was eventually handed down in March this year, but prior to that,
the two had been in and out of court on different occasions.
At one point, Mohadi approached the Civil Court seeking a
protection order and the same was granted in his favour.
Tambudzani, however, then applied for a review of the court
ruling following which Mohadi filed yet another application for contempt of
court, which application was dismissed and immediately thereafter made a
reapplication of the dismissed contempt of court matter, prompting the pending
case.pting the pending case. Newsday
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