An Aba-based Lawyer, Mr Nnanna Ukaegbu, has petitioned the state Chief Judge, Justice Lilian Abai, over an alleged missing document in an ongoing suit No: A/175/2007 at an Aba High court.
Ukaegbu is a joint litigant in the suit with Ms Diane Lynn Ijioma and Anor Versus Chief Abara Ijioma and six others, pending before Justice Innocent Nwabughiogu of Aba High Court.
He also asked Nwabughiogu to recuse himself from the suit, pending the investigation of his complaints against him.
He said that he resolved to petition the chief jusge “because of the need for the stream of justice to remain unpolluted”.
Ukaegbu said the first to fourth defendants in the suit, on May 9, served a motion on his counsel, which was captured in the court’s record of proceedings.
He further said the defendants’ counsel called his lawyer on May 10, to inform him that there was a mistake in their earlier motion, which required another motion to correct.
”On May 14, the said first to fourth defendants served the second motion on my counsel.
“What was, however, shocking is that the filing date of the motion is May 8, which is two days before the conception of the application.
“I applied for the certified true copy and the High Court Registrar gave it to me but there was no more copy of the exhibit, which is the earlier motion, in the case file,” Ukaegbu stated.
He further stated that his lawyer had drawn the attention of the court to the missing exhibit from the court record.
He, therefore, urged the chief judge “to institute an investigation on how the exhibit was tampered with and found missing from the record of the court”.
The legal practitioner asked: “Who tampered with the case file? Who pilfered the file copy of a process duly filed and served?
“Are there no administrative consequences for the unlawful removal of documents from court’s file?”
He emphasised the need to investigate the complaint since, according to him, there have been several previous tampering with his processes in the same court’s file, which he claimed to have overlooked. (NAN)
