George v Singh and Others (AR296/2024) [2025] ZAKZPHC 103 (17 October 2025)

Case Note

George v Singh and Others (AR296/2024) [2025] ZAKZPHC ___ (17 October 2025)

Reportability

This judgment is reportable because it clarifies the circumstances in which a tenant may obtain a final interdict against a landlord, private security officials and municipal inspectors who abuse the right of entry during electricity-theft inspections. It synthesises older authority on interdicts with contemporary constitutional imperatives of dignity and respectful treatment. Furthermore, Mossop J’s discussion of the interaction between the tenant’s possessory rights and the municipality’s statutory inspection powers provides important guidance to both practitioners and municipalities country-wide.

The decision is also significant for its treatment of alternative remedies: the court rejected the suggestion that the Protection from Harassment Act 17 of 2011 constitutes an adequate substitute where the gravamen of the complaint is unlawful entry, threats and property damage. In addition, the judgment illustrates how the new Uniform Rule 67A affects costs on appeal, thereby giving practical content to the rule shortly after its commencement.

Cases Cited

Setlogelo v Setlogelo 1914 AD 221
Maeder v Perm-Us (Proprietary) Ltd 1939 CPD 208
R v Matthews and Others 1960 (1) SA 752 (A)
Free State Gold Areas Ltd v Merriespruit (Orange Free State) Gold Mining Co Ltd and Another 1961 (2) SA 505 (W)
Soffiantini v Mould 1956 (4) SA 150 (E)
Francis v Roberts 1973 (1) SA 507 (RA)
Plascon-Evans Paints Ltd v Van Riebeeck Paints (Pty) Ltd 1984 (3) SA 623 (A)
Stauffer Chemicals Chemical Products Division of Chesebrough-Ponds (Pty) Ltd v Monsanto Company 1988 (1) SA 805 (T)
Philip Morris Inc and Another v Marlboro Shirt Co SA Ltd and Another 1991 (2) SA 720 (A)
Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Task Force v Minister of Safety and Security and Others 2009 (6) SA 513 (WCC)
Gupta and Others v Malema and Others [2016] ZAGPPHC 64
Korkie and Others v Ismail and Others [2018] ZAECPEHC 37
Phaleng-Podile v Dovey [2022] ZAGPJHC 656

Legislation Cited

Protection from Harassment Act 17 of 2011
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (implicated but not expressly cited)

Rules of Court Cited

Uniform Rule of Court 67A
(Reference is also made to the traditional principles set out in the Uniform Rules on motion proceedings and taxation scales.)

HEADNOTE

Summary

The appellant, Mark Trevor George, is the lessee and operator of the Grosvenor Hotel in Durban. After two intrusive and allegedly violent electricity-inspection raids orchestrated by the eThekwini Municipality and facilitated by the landlord, Beheer Singh, and his nephew, Mano Singh, George obtained a rule nisi interdicting the respondents from threatening staff, damaging property or interfering with the hotel’s operations. Masipa J later discharged the rule. On appeal the full court (Bezuidenhout, Mngadi & Mossop JJ) reinstated the interdict (excluding a prayer preventing all entry without a court order) and granted costs on the highest scale.

Key Issues

Whether the appellant proved
– a clear right to be free from intimidation, damage and unlawful entry,
– a reasonable apprehension of future harm, and
– the absence of an adequate alternative remedy.

The court also considered:
– the evidential weight of an earlier raid that the respondents chose not to answer;
– the correct application of the Plascon-Evans test to motion-court disputes; and
– the relevance of the Protection from Harassment Act as an alleged alternative remedy.

Held

1. The earlier and later inspections formed a continuous pattern of unlawful conduct; the respondents’ failure to rebut detailed allegations amounted to an admission.
2. The appellant’s fear of repetition was objectively reasonable, satisfying the second Setlogelo requirement.
3. The Harassment Act was not an adequate alternative remedy; therefore the final interdict must issue.
4. Costs were awarded on scale C with senior-counsel fees, applying the spirit of Uniform Rule 67A.

THE FACTS

The Grosvenor Hotel, an historic inner-city establishment, is owned by the first respondent but leased to the appellant under a 2019 lease. Relations soured after the landlord attempted to cancel the lease, spawning multiple suits. Against that backdrop, an inspection party of some 30 municipal electricians, private security officers and the two Singh respondents arrived unannounced on 20 October 2021. Lacking proper identification or a municipal job card, they forced entry, cut wiring, damaged a newly refurbished bar and allegedly stole liquor, all in full view of guests. Hotel security eventually contained the group, and the SAPS was called.

Three months later, on 26 January 2022, a second team – again including the Singhs and key municipal official Mr Roberts – returned. When denied entry pending proof of authority, they attempted to break gates and climb through windows using ladders. The appellant, watching on CCTV, called his attorney, the municipality and the police. The municipality disavowed knowledge of the operation.

Asserting that these events demonstrated a continuing threat, George obtained a rule nisi on 27 January 2022 interdicting threats, intimidation, damage and operational interference, and prohibiting entry without a court order. The respondents opposed, denying wrongdoing and arguing that the first raid was irrelevant and that electricity theft justified their presence. Masipa J discharged the rule, holding that the appellant had an alternative remedy under the Harassment Act and that factual disputes were irresoluble.

THE ISSUES

The appellate court had to decide:
First, whether the appellant had a clear possessory and personal right warranting protection from the respondents’ conduct during inspections.

Second, whether the evidence established a reasonable apprehension of future harm, particularly in light of the respondents’ refusal to deal with the first raid.

Third, whether any adequate alternative remedy (such as proceedings under the Protection from Harassment Act) existed so as to preclude a final interdict.

Fourth, whether the court a quo misdirected itself in characterising the case as one about electricity theft rather than unlawful conduct during inspections.

ANALYSIS

The court commenced by criticising the respondents’ “potentially dangerous strategy” of refusing to answer the allegations about the 20 October 2021 raid. Relevance is decided by the court, not the parties; by declining to respond, the Singhs ran the risk – realised in the judgment – that their silence would be treated as an admission. On the uncontested evidence, the first inspection involved forcible entry, threats, damage and theft, all of which infringed the appellant’s rights.

Mossop J then held that the two inspections were not discrete episodes but illustrated a continuing modus operandi. Drawing on Stauffer Chemicals and Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Task Force, the judge reiterated that past infringements may ground an inference of future repetition. Given the municipality’s statutory duty to combat electricity theft, further inspections were likely; without judicial intervention the appellant faced a real prospect of renewed misconduct.

The court rejected Masipa J’s focus on the illegality of electricity connections. The appellant conceded the municipality’s inspection power; the dispute lay in how that power was exercised and in the landlord’s illegitimate presence. The landlord has no inherent right to enter the leased premises against the tenant’s wishes (Soffiantini) and cannot cloak himself with municipal authority.

Regarding factual disputes, the court invoked the robust approach of Soffiantini: on motion, courts must not be “hamstrung” by artful denials. Applying Plascon-Evans, the objective photographic and affidavit evidence, together with the respondents’ non-denial, justified accepting the appellant’s version.

Finally, the court held that the Protection from Harassment Act was irrelevant: the statutory definition of harassment did not fit the factual matrix, and the Act was never designed to police landlord-tenant or municipal inspection disputes. Hence no adequate alternative remedy existed.

REMEDY

The appeal was allowed. The full court confirmed the rule nisi in all respects except the prayer absolutely forbidding entry without a court order, which the appellant abandoned. A final interdict now restrains the respondents from threatening, insulting, intimidating, assaulting or harming the appellant, his staff or patrons, and from damaging or interfering with the hotel.

On costs, the court ordered the respondents jointly and severally to pay the appellant’s costs in the court a quo, in the SCA leave-to-appeal application, and on appeal, including the costs of senior counsel, taxable on scale C in line with Uniform Rule 67A.

LEGAL PRINCIPLES

A. Final Interdict Requirements – The tripartite test in Setlogelo: clear right; actual or reasonably apprehended harm; absence of alternative remedy.

B. Reasonable Apprehension – Past infringements may constitute evidence of intent to continue (Stauffer Chemicals; Francis v Roberts). A court measures apprehension objectively.

C. Tenant’s Possessory Rights – A lessor has no automatic right of entry during currency of a lease; unconsented entry constitutes trespass (Soffiantini).

D. Robust Motion-Court Approach – Courts must, where justice demands, decide factual disputes on affidavit, especially when denials are bald or strategic (Soffiantini; Plascon-Evans).

E. Alternative Remedies – The Harassment Act is not a catch-all substitute; where the statutory definition of harassment is not met, litigants retain the right to seek interdictory relief in the High Court.

F. Costs under Rule 67A – Post-commencement matters may attract enhanced scales to deter abusive litigation, and senior-counsel costs may be allowed where complexity warrants.

The judgment thus re-affirms fundamental interdict principles while contextualising them within modern constitutional values and procedural developments.