Nyahururu law courts have called for the depositors of cash bails that amount to the excess of Sh 20 million to collect the amounts that date back to July 1996.
Speaking during a Court Users Committee meeting, Chief Magistrate Justice Evans Keago, who is the head of station said that failure to collect the amount will result in the court surrendering the money to the Unclaimed Assets Authority.
The amount uncollected stands at sh. 28,072,854.70 as at April 2023.
“The Unclaimed Assets Authority has a directive that within three years if the amount is not collected, it should be surrendered to the authority.
“We have the files but we do not have the contacts of the depositors and we are appealing to the Deputy County Commissioners to help us in sensitizing the public on the uncollected deposits,” said Justice Keago.
He added that the claimants have to prove the authenticity of their claims as the depositors of the cash bails.
There are 2,114 unclaimed cash bails to date with 297 cash bails having been unclaimed in court for over 20 years.
The amounts range between Sh. 1000 for the lowest and Sh. 100,000 for the highest amount.
This comes after some functions of the Nyahururu Law Courts, just like the High Court and the Environment and Lands court were transferred to Nyandarua County last month.
This is after the Ol Kalou Law Courts were opened by the chief justice Martha Koome in August this year.
Some functions of the Nyahururu Law Courts will be serving some parts of Nyandarua like Ndaragwa and Shamata which geographically are nearer to Nyahururu.
Justice Keago said that criminal cases from the areas can be heard at the Nyahururu Law Courts, but the civil matters touching on Nyandarua will be heard at the newly opened Ol Kalou Law Courts.
He also called for patience from the members of the bar during the transition period. Some lawyers had complained of Laikipia files being transferred to Ol Kalou and thus delaying their cases.
The committee was also told that the files moved to Ol Kalou law courts shall be marked and given new file numbers clearly indicating Nyandarua.
By Antony Mwangi
