Supreme Court judges Justice Antonia Guvava, Justice Bharatkumar Patel and Justice Tendai Uchena. have ordered internet service provider, Telecontract (Telco) to pay back Harare transport company J&J Transport its $5 000 deposit. This comes after J&J Transport engaged Telco to supply it with fibre internet services at a speed of 5 MegaBytes per second. However, Teleco installed fibre which had a speed of only 5MegaBits per second. As a result, J&J Transport cancelled the contract and approached the Magistrate’s Court to recover its $5 000 deposit.
The Magistrate’s court ordered Telco to pay back the deposit, but it appealed at the High Court. The High Court dismissed the appeal leading to Telco approaching the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court also ruled against Telco. Part of the ruling reads:
The respondent (J&J Transport) thought it had agreed to acquire an internet speed of five megabytes per second. The appellant (Telco) noted this but chose to keep quiet, writing it off as a typographic mistake when it was clearly not.
The appellant did not bother to clarify to the respondent the terminology used…. There was, therefore, no meeting of the minds and a contract could not have come into existence
The court a quo (the court below, from which an appeal has been taken) therefore correctly upheld the decision of the Magistrates’ Court. Its decision is unassailable. In the result, the appeal is dismissed with costs.
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