government took over the property and managed the property through the Departed Asians
Property Custodian Board, the respondent in this application. The club house has since been used
as a mess for Senior Prisons Officers.
In 1983, the applicants applied for repossession of the property under the Expropriate Properties
Act. 1982 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) but their application was rejected on the ground that
the lease under which the applicants had held the property had expired in 1981 and the property
had reverted to Kampala City Council, the controlling authority.
The applicants instituted a suit in the High Court against the respondent seeking for certain
declaratory orders, inter alia, that the Act applied to the suit land. The trial judge in the High
Court dismissed the suit. On appeal holding that the suit land was within the provisions of
section 1(1) (c) of the Act. thus this Court in effect declared the applicants former owners of the
suit land. The applicants filed a bill of costs claiming shs.* or prosecuting the appeal in this
court. The registrar of this court in his capacity as taxing officer taxed the bill under the
provisions of Rule 108 of the Rules of the Court and paragraph 9(2) of the third schedule to the
Rules and allowed shs. 70,000,000/= as the instruction fee. The taxing officer arrived at that
figure on the erroneous basis that the value of the suit property is shs. 2,100,000,000/=. This
value was assessed by valuers who included in their assessment the property developed after the
expulsion of 1972. The respondents were dissatisfied with the decision of the taxing officer and
so referred the matter to a single judge of this Court under Rule 109(1) and (2) of the Rules of
the Court. Platt, J.S.C. heard the reference and allowed the appeal by reducing the amount of the
instruction fee as indicated earlier from shs. 70,000,000/= to shs. 7m/=. From that decisions the
applicants made this reference by virtue of subrule (5) of Rule 109. The reference contains six
grounds.
The principles upon which this court considers a reference such as this are those contained in
Rule 109(1) and (2) and paragraph 9(2) and (3) of the 3rd schedule to the Rules. Platt, J.S.C.,
considered these principles fully in his ruling before he allowed the appeal. These principles
have been the subject of consideration by this court and its predecessors in the following
decisions:-