There was a sigh of relief for a widow after the court of appeal in Mombasa thwarted an order to exhume the body of her late husband.

The court of appeal  delivered the judgment in favour of Kiran Nazerali, her 20-year old daughter Mahek Fatima and her 18-year old second daughter Nurjehan Nazerali for the body of Anverali Nazerail who was a businessman not to be exhumed according to the family’s wish saying they find no merit in the appeal to allow to quash an earlier order.

Court of appeal Judges Gatembu, P. Nyamweya and G. Odunga set aside a lower court and a high court order made at Mombasa law court under criminal revision application.

The court of appeal judges said in a 15-page judgment delivered through virtual means that there was no enough evidence of suspicious circumstances warranting the exhumation of the deceased's body.

They argued in their judgment that without such evidence the court finds that the case did not meet the stringent threshold to disturb the dead.

"Accordingly, we find that there was irregularity in the manner in which the exhumation proceedings were conducted," the judges ruled.

The court of appeal added that inquires appropriate to such an order were not  made by the lower court before the said orders were made.  

The judges argued although the court has power  to give an order for exhumation it is  not an order to be issued lightly.

They argued it has always been accepted that after death there should be a decent and reverend burial of the body 

The court said therefore the dead should remain undisturbed for all purposes except when otherwise directed by a  court of law since that is the primary function of the court. 

The bereaved family, through their counsel Mohamed Balala and Sborne Lijoodi, had moved to the court of appeal to challenge both the lower court's and high court's rulings in an application by the coast Regional Criminal Investigation office to exhume the body of Nazerali for autopsy to establish the cause of his death.

The two courts had given a ruling to exhume the body which was buried in May last year at the Khoja Shia Ithnaasheri graveyard in Mombasa county in line with Islamic teachings.

The deceased's estranged brother Shakir Awar, a Pakistani national who cried foul over his brother's death, resurfaced two weeks after the burial to seek for the exhumation of the late businessman's body. The prosecution was led by Hillary Isiaho.