Omar, JA delivered the following ruling of the Co:
In this Notice of Motion, the applicant seeks to move this Court to exercise its D revisional jurisdiction to revise the Ruling of the High Court in Civil Case No 9 of 1993 and issue an order to the effect that in so far as the said ruling purports to stay the proceedings in relation thereto, purportedly by virtue of s 8 of the Civil Procedure Code pending the determination of Civil Case No 7 of 1993 be set aside E and that in lieu thereof the trial of the case to proceed to its logical conclusion. The revisional jurisdiction of this Court is provided by the Appellate Jurisdiction (Amendment) Act 17 of 1993 s 2(2) and (3). The jurisdiction in ss (2) is exercised either in the course of hearing an appeal or incidental to an appeal. Subsection (3) enables this Court to call for and examine the record of any proceedings before F the High Court for the purpose of satisfying itself as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any finding, order or any other decision made thereon and as to the regularity of any proceedings in the High Court. The present application must fall within the provisions of ss (3). G
Before proceeding to hear such an application on merits, this court must satisfy itself whether it is being properly moved to exercise its revisional jurisdiction. The revisional powers conferred by ss (3) were not meant to be used as an alternative to the appellate jurisdiction of this court. In the circumstances, this court, unless it H is acting on its own motion, cannot properly be moved to use its revisional powers in ss (3) in cases where the applicant has the right of appeal with or without leave and has not exercised that option. In these circumstances, we asked the applicant whether or not the High Court Ruling he is moving this Court to revise is appealable. He I
A conceded that it is appealable with leave. We agree with him. The next question then was why he did not take that course of action. The applicant replied that he decided to come to this Court by way of revisional proceedings because he feared the length of time it takes to process and finalise an appeal particularly in this case where the judge who is involved was not a resident judge at Arusha. Is this Bsufficient reason? Mr Mahatane for the respondents did not think so. In his view all that the applicant is trying to do is to use the revisional jurisdiction of this Court as an alternative to its appellate jurisdiction and that would be a misuse of its revisional jurisdiction. C
In our view this Court can be moved to use its revisional jurisdiction under ss (3) only in cases where there is no right of appeal or where there is, it has been blocked by judicial process. Lastly where such right exists but was not taken, good and sufficient reasons are given why no appeal was lodged. D
In the present case we agree with Mr Mahatane that the applicant has not given any good and sufficient reasons why he did not appeal. In his own words he decided to invoke the revisional jurisdiction of this Court as an alternative to the appellate jurisdiction because the latter takes too long to process and finalise. But E the revisional jurisdiction of this Court was not meant to short circuit its appellate jurisdiction, in any case the applicant was not entitled to assume that his intended appeal would take longer than necessary and then shape his court of action on that assumption.
For these reasons we are satisfied that the applicant has not established good and sufficient reasons for wanting to move the revisional jurisdiction of this Court. Accordingly we decline to exercise such jurisdiction and dismiss this application with costs. F
A
