The High Court in Mombasa dismissed a petition by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) against a Sh979,987 costs award in favour of Doshi Iron Mongers Limited, bringing a closure to a long-running legal dispute over the seizure and detention of the company’s goods.
Justice Jairus Ngaah, in a ruling delivered on September 25, 2026, upheld the decision of a taxing officer who had assessed Doshi Iron Mongers’ party-and-party bill of costs at Sh979,987.
KRA had asked the court to overturn the taxation decision made by Deputy Registrar Noelyne Reuben on January 24, 2025, arguing that several items had been wrongly assessed and that the resulting award was excessive. The authority also sought, in the alternative, to have the disputed items taxed afresh by another taxing officer.
The dispute traces its origins to a 2019 High Court judgment in which Doshi Iron Mongers succeeded in its suit arising from the seizure and detention of its goods. KRA subsequently appealed to the Court of Appeal. In February 2024, the appellate court partly allowed the appeal, reducing the special damages awarded against KRA from Sh7.126 million to Sh6.682 million. The Sh300,000 general damages award against the authority remained intact. The total award against KRA therefore stood at approximately Sh6.982 million.
It was on the basis of that judgment that Doshi Iron Mongers filed its party-and-party bill of costs for taxation. The taxing officer subsequently allowed Sh239,649 as instruction fees and Sh79,883.11 as getting-up fees, while allowing the remaining items as drawn. The total bill came to Sh979,987.
One of KRA’s main arguments was that the instruction fee had been calculated using the value of the judgment when, in its view, the dispute concerned the seizure of goods and should have attracted a lower, reasonable or flat fee. The authority proposed an instruction fee of Sh55,000 and a getting-up fee of Sh18,333.
The judge held that the case was an ordinary civil suit for damages which had proceeded to judgment and resulted in a quantified monetary award. It was therefore different from judicial review proceedings, where the court is primarily concerned with the legality of a decision-making process rather than awarding a specific sum of money.
The judge said the applicable rules required the instruction fee in such a case to be calculated by reference to the value of the subject matter where that value could be ascertained. Since the Court of Appeal had ultimately determined the award against KRA at Sh6,982,467, that figure was properly used as the basis for calculating the instruction fee. “Where judgment has been entered, it is the judgment, not the pleadings, that fixes the value of the subject matter,” the judge held. He consequently found no error in the taxing officer’s assessment of the Sh239,649 instruction fee.
KRA had also relied on the scale applicable to appeals, arguing that the instruction fee should have been assessed under that provision.
The High Court rejected that position, noting that the bill being taxed arose from the original High Court proceedings and not from an appeal. Justice Ngaah observed that the underlying case was neither an appeal nor a judicial review application. It was a substantive civil claim. The judge also rejected KRA’s reliance on a separate Court of Appeal decision involving judicial review proceedings, holding that the circumstances of that case were materially different.
KRA further challenged numerous items relating to the service of court documents, arguing that the amounts were substantial, unsupported by receipts and lacked evidence of physical service. The disputed service items amounted to a claim by KRA for a reduction of approximately Sh519,600.
The court, however, found that the charges had been calculated under the mileage scale contained in the Advocates (Remuneration) Order. The documents had been served in Nairobi from Mombasa, a distance of more than 450 kilometres. The judge noted that KRA did not dispute that service had occurred in Nairobi. Justice Ngaah held that mileage charges under the prescribed scale were not ordinary out-of-pocket disbursements requiring receipts in the same manner as expenses supported by specific purchases.
According to KRA, the bill ran from item 1 to 122 before again numbering items from 113 to 144. The authority argued that the irregular numbering could have resulted in duplication and contributed to an inflated award.
The judge found that the numbering error, by itself, did not establish that any item had actually been charged twice. He said KRA, needed to identify the specific item or items allegedly duplicated and demonstrate that the final figure included the same amount more than once. The court therefore treated the numbering problem as a clerical irregularity that had not been shown to cause prejudice or affect the amount awarded.
Justice Ngaah stressed that a reference is not an ordinary appeal and does not give a judge an opportunity simply to substitute his or her own assessment of costs for that of the taxing officer.
The court will ordinarily interfere only where the taxing officer has committed an error of principle or where the amount awarded is so manifestly excessive that it supports an inference of such an error. The court also noted that taxation seeks to strike a balance between fairly compensating a successful litigant and ensuring that costs do not become so high as to restrict access to justice.
The court upheld the taxing officer’s January 24, 2025 decision and the certificate of taxation awarding Doshi Iron Mongers Sh979,987.
The ruling leaves intact the costs award arising from a dispute that began with the seizure and detention of Doshi Iron Mongers’ goods and has traversed both the High Court and Court of Appeal. The decision also provides a reminder that, once a civil claim has resulted in a quantified judgment, that adjudged amount will ordinarily form the basis for determining instruction fees where the applicable remuneration rules so provide.
