After a long stretch of a decade, Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani is now once again the proud owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory. This has been possible with the efforts of the higher Court of Appeal and its judge, justice Mwinde. However, this feat was achieved after significant struggles, majority due to the inability of the previous court to provide transparent verdict. The case of Zambezi Portland was first registered at the Lusaka High Court. While Dr. Rajan Mahtani presented all evidences and testimonials he had with the hopes of getting quick justice, that did not happen. Despite the straightforward case, several challenges resulted in the case being dragged for more than a decade. Some of the reasons behind this long pendency was frequent transfer of the judges, inability of the judges to provide judgement and various other operational issues. While the final decision from the Lusaka High Court came during the month of May, 2018, a critical announcement was made just two months before that. In this announcement, justice Nkonde declared that all case proceedings with respect to the Zambezi Portland Cement were closed and both parties were required to submit their evidences, testimonials and other details in written and oral format. Based on these evidences only, the judge was supposed to provide the final verdict. This declaration of closure of case proceedings was a pleasant surprise for Dr. Mahtani who was struck in the case due to the various operational challenges associated with the case.
Despite having all relevant evidences, the judge from the Lusaka High Court gave a shocker when it was announced that Ventriglias were only shareholders of the Portland Cement Zambia. To counter this unethical verdict, Dr. Mahtani approached the higher Court of Appeal which gave its final decision on 31st January 2019 in which it was declared that based on the available evidences, Dr. Rajan Mahtani is majority shareholder and actual owner of the Zambezi Portland Factory.