Tycoon Mukesh Babubhai Shukla, the Executive Director of Shumuk Investment Limited has been convicted on six counts of uttering false documents by Buganda Road Magistrate Marion Mangeni.
The charges are related to uttering a false document in form of a letter for the official handover of Hotel Diplomat Muyenga purporting the same to have been signed by the late Bonny Katatumba, the former Consular of Uganda to Pakistan and his other family members.
The documents are said to have been uttered on April 17, 2015 and November 2017 indicating that Katatumba family had authorized him to take over Hotel Diplomat.
The Court heard that the Prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt with evidence from their seven witnesses that Mukesh had committed the said crimes against him of which he had previously denied.
In her ruling, Magistrate Mangeni has sentenced Mukesh to pay a fine of two million shillings on each of the six counts and failure of which, he should go to Luzira Prison and be there for two years as his punishment.
The Children of Katatumba led by Angella Katatumba welcomed the decision saying that they are happy he is now convicted. “This afternoon, Mukesh Shukla aka Shumuk was convicted of fraud (uttering of forged/false documents), in our case against him, at Buganda Road Court. Thank You God,” Angella Katatumba said.
Hotel Diplomat is subject of the case where Mr Mukesh through his Springs’ International Development Limited, Shumuk Financial Service Limited and Shumuk Springs Development Limited were parties to the dispute.
Mr Mukesh had several times attempted to evict the Katatumba family from the contested hotel in Muyenga through numerous court cases.
In 2017, the Chief Magistrates Court at Makindye dismissed Mr Mukesh’s case to evict the Katatumba family from the hotel reasoning that the case was wrongly filed under a wrong procedure and law in court.
