PROPHETIC Healing and Deliverance (PHD) Ministries leader Prophet Walter Magaya has challenged the $500 000 adultery damages claim filed against him by Harare man Denford Mutashu.
CHARLES LAITON SENIOR COURT REPORTER
Through his lawyer advocate Thabani Mpofu, Magaya urged the court to punish Mutashu’s lawyers for failing to provide details of how the alleged adultery was committed.
Last week, Mutashu issued summons against the man of the cloth, accusing him of having an adulterous affair with his wife Nomsa (Ruvazhe) Mutashu, after the latter allegedly visited Magaya’s church seeking deliverance.
In his response to the $500 000 adultery damages claim filed under case number HC6880/14, Magaya said Mutashu’s claim did not disclose any offence recognisable at law.
“More particularly in that, while making a claim for adultery damages, plaintiff (Mutashu) does not allege, plead or place reliance upon any real or alleged sexual encounter between defendant (Magaya) and his wife,” Mpofu said.
“No date and place of any sexual encounter has been set out as is required by law and, generally no particulars such as would support the commission of adultery have been set out or relied upon in the entire declaration.”
Mpofu said the claim, therefore was “incompetent and devoid of any recognised legal basis”.
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He also said alternatively they were applying to strike out Mutashu’s declaration on the grounds that it “did not constitute a pleading, it seeks to tell a story.
“It contains evidence, which evidence is at any rate speculative and was irrelevant, superfluous, verbose and unnecessarily argumentative,” Magaya’s lawyers said.
Mpofu urged the court to uphold his applications and issue an order of the costs to be on the higher scale of legal practitioner and own client.
“Such costs to be borne by plaintiff’s legal practitioner debonis propriis, an order directing plaintiff’s legal practitioner to refund plaintiff of all the fees he has charged in connection with this matter with such refund being made through the registrar of the High Court of Zimbabwe,” he said.
Mutashu in his summons claimed that the alleged adultery had seriously affected his personal health to the extent that at one point he was hospitalised due to excessive stress.
Mutashu also accused the cleric of buying his wife a latest version of the Toyota Mark 11 vehicle, adding the alleged move had gone to show the continued adulterous relationship between the two.
