The coast is clear for the trial of Synagogue of All Nations (SCOAN) trustees and the two engineers responsible for the construction of their six-storey guest house, which collapsed on September 12, 2014.
Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo of the Ikeja High Court yesterday dismissed the application of the engineers, Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun, which sought to set aside the coroner’s verdict indicting them for the incident.
He fixed their trial for Thursday, next week after upholding the prosecution’s argument that they were properly served.
Last year, Lagos State Government preferred 111-count charge against the trustees, the engineers and their companies, Hardrock Construction and Engineering Company and Jandy Trust Limited for alleged negligence over the collapsed building in which 116 persons died.
Last December 11, the court, granted the prosecution’s application to serve the fourth and fifth defendants through substituted means after several attempts to serve them failed.
The engineers challenged the legality of the processes served them.
In his ruling, Justice Lawal-Akapo said the essence of service to the judicial system in criminal matter could not be over-emphasised.
He said the purpose of service is to afford the person being charged to court to react, adding that there is provision for substituted service in the country’s laws.
On the defendants’ prayer to stay of proceedings because the attorney-general should not have filed the charge when he did last December 2, having been restrained by Justice Ibrahim Buba of a Federal High Court, Justice Lawal-Akapo held that the order of a high court, whether state or federal, is not binding on another high court.
The federal and state high courts, he said, were courts of coordinate jurisdiction and so Justice Buba’s ruling cannot stop proceedings in his own court.
“I find no merit in the applications and they are hereby dismissed”, the judge held.