High Court on Thursday overturned the Civil Court's verdict regarding the ownership dispute of 'Haveeru' newspaper and ordered a retrial.
The ownership dispute case was filed at the Civil Court by Ibrahim Rasheed Moosa, Farooq Hassan, and Mohamed Naeem, seeking shares of 'Haveeru News Agency''s income and management rights.
However, when the Civil Court issued its verdict in 2016, the court ordered a ban on all Haveeru staff from working at any other media outlets for a period of two years, warning that action will be taken against any employee that did so. The court also ordered to change all assets, website and archive of Haveeru to any entity determined by the majority shareholders of Haveeru News Agency, and to change the name of 'Haveeru Media Group', which was managing Haveeru newspaper at the time.
Following the appeal filed by Dr Mohamed Zahir Hussain, the High Court on Thursday overturned the Civil Court's verdict and ordered the latter to open the case again.
In its ruling, the High Court noted that the orders issued under the Civil Court's verdict were unrelated to the requests made by the plaintiffs. The orders were also given without granting the parties involved the chance to address them, the court added.
Further highlighting that both the High Court and Supreme Court had earlier ruled that verdicts cannot be unrelated to the requests made in a case, the three judges on the bench unanimously agreed to order the lower court to go for a retrial.
The bench comprised of presiding Judge Abdul Rauf Ibrahim, Judge Ali Sameer and Judge Mohamed Faisal.
Meanwhile, the former staff of Haveeru had appealed the Civil Court's verdict regarding their employment at the High Court, while the state also appealed the order to take action against any Haveeru staff that worked at another media outlet.
Farooq, Rasheed and Naeem filed the lawsuit seeking shares of Haveeru, claiming that the newspaper belonged to 'Haveeru News Agency' founded in 1983.
However, Haveeru newspaper had been in circulation for four years prior to the agency's formation, under Dr Zahir's ownership. While Dr Zahir had signed an agreement to establish Haveeru News Agency with Farooq, Rasheed and Naeem, the agency was registered at the then Department of Information without Zahir.
Dr Zahir and Haveeru always maintained in court that the newspaper's ownership had never been transferred to Haveeru News Agency.
Dr Zahir had paid for all of Haveeru's expenses during the newspaper's development, out of his own wealth, a mortgage on his property, and loans taken under his name. Haveeru had repeatedly stated in court that no other entity had been involved in the newspaper's development.
Haveeru's ownership was transferred in 2013 to Haveeru Media Group, of which Dr Zahir's three children are stakeholders.
After 37 years, Haveeru newspaper was stopped on March 31, 2016, following the Civil Court's order to include Farooq, Rasheed and Naeem in all operations and transactions related to the paper.
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