By Evarist Baimu Nyaga Mawalla - Home

The appellant also raised the issue of estoppels both at the trial and at theappellate stages. At the High Court level LUGAINGIRA, J. dealt with that issuevery exhaustively. Five and a half out of a total of fifteen typed pages, that isslightly over a third of the entire judgment were devoted to estoppel. The learnedjudge correctly observed that Section 123 of the Evidence Act 1967 is in parimaterial with Section 115 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872He then went on to consider three authorities to wit Sarat Chunder Day v. GopalChunder Laha (1892) 19 I.A 203 Nurdin Bandali v. Lombank Tanganyika Ltd,[1965] E.A 304 at 313 and then listed down three condtions for estopped tooperate. These are.First, a tacit representation by one personTo another; secondly an intention that theRepresentation should be acted upon by thatOther person; thirdly, action by that otherPerson to his detriment should the maker ofThe representation seek to repudiate itThe learned judge had no problems at all with the first two equipments. He foundthem to exist. However the learned judge was of the opinion and a right one toothat the appellant never acted on the representation so that its withdrawal wouldinjure him for, otherwise he would not have been striving to obtain an order ofcertiorari to quash the very representation. The learned judge found estoppel tobe unavailable on that account. In addition he rejected estoppel for anotherreason .Mr. Mono cited to the learned judge Sarka’s Law of Evidence 3 rd ed. At p 1140which provides that there can be no estoppel against the Government on a pointof law and construction of a statute. The learned judge also cited Lord376