Mohadi, ex-wife in fresh fight

By Charles Laiton

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