Maji ya Chumvi residents allowed to file application

Some 200 residents of Maji ya Chumvi in Kwale county have been directed to file a formal application to be enjoined in a land case. 

The Lands ministry has been sued by another group of nearly 200 people for directing unidentified officers to verify their land ownership.

They term the order wrongful. The land in question is 430 acres. 

They also accuse the respondents of demanding, through a newspaper advert on October 13, 2019, that they mark their parcels' boundaries.

Those named in the suit include Lands CS Farida Karoney, the Kwale Lands registry, land agencies and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

Mombasa High Court judge Charles Yano rejected an attempt by the petitioners to block those seeking to be enjoined. 

Their lawyer Kinyua Kamudi objected to the residents being enjoined as interested parties, saying some of them were not genuine residents of Maji ya Chumvi.

He said some of them had confided in him that they did not know the lawyer purportedly representing them. "Some names listed in the list of the intended interested parties are of dead persons. We need to handle the matter with caution," Kamudi said.

But lawyer Japhet Asige, who represents the interested parties, said all of his clients were residents of Maji ya Chumvi.

He said his clients have a right to seek to be enjoined under the Mutunga laws.

The matter will be mentioned on February 6.

Edited by Josephine M. Mayuya