Milimani Chief Magistrate Lucas Onyina will today give directions in a case where billionaire businessman Ashok Doshi is charged with land fraud.
Doshi and his company, Magnum Properties Limited, were in 2023 charged with four counts of land fraud, forging land documents and forcefully taking over land worth millions of shillings located along Processional Way in Nairobi.
The charge sheet showed Doshi, who is a director at Doshi Group of Companies, allegedly hatched the plan to grab the land owned by Greenview Lodge Limited in 1992 when he allegedly forged a stamp duty from the Ministry of Lands to claim ownership.
In count one, the Mombasa-based tycoon and his company jointly faced a charge of conspiracy to defraud where the prosecution alleged that they forged a government stamp duty valued at Sh1.2 million to register a land title in 1992.
When the matter came up in January, Doshi’s lawyer Noel Okwach told the court that Doshi had asked for a review of the charges with the possibility of the Director of Public Prosecutions dropping the criminal proceedings altogether.
“My client wrote to the DPP on December 13, 2024, seeking a review and he responded on December 19, 2024, saying the file had been recalled from the DCI for a review of the evidence,” Okwach said.
The lawyer said the DPP had indicated a possibility of the charges being dropped.
Today, the parties are expected to update on the progress of the review.
Sheth was not charged and has never pleaded to the charges after he secured conservatory orders from the High Court halting his prosecution.
Doshi denied the charges and was released on a Sh500,000 bail and ordered to deposit his passport in court.
Lawyers representing Harith Sheth informed the magistrate that the High Court orders were still in place and that further directions are due to be issued today.
