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JUDGMENT
Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The proceedings in the Court of the Reserve Settlement Commissioner have had a very chequered and unfortunate career. It commenced with Gazette Notice published on the 4th November, 1937, given under section 5 of the Forests Ordinance,1 constituting the forest reserve, and appointed Mr. H. C. Ellershaw, Reserve Settlement Commissioner to hold the enquiry. For some reason or the other not disclosed, Mr. Ellershaw did not start the enquiry; he was later replaced by Mr. Sutherland as by notice in Gazette No. 35 of 1939; Mr. Sutherland too was replaced by Mr. Pullen as by notice No. 618 published in Gazette No. 31 of 1951. Mr. Pullen opened the enquiry on January 20, 1953, but did not complete it, and by notice No. 742, published in Gazette No. 21 of March 12, 1955, Mr. P. M. Riley was appointed in his place; it was he who concluded the enquiry.
It appearing at the early stages of the enquiry before him that the claims made by the parties conflicted, and therefore raised a dispute of ownership of land within the proposed forest reserve, Mr. Pullen, by order dated the 10th March, 1954, made under section 9 (2) of the Ordinance, referred the said dispute to the Denkyira Confederacy Grade "A" Native Court which was the appropriate native court. In the said order the commissioner directed the native court, in addition to determining the ownership, to determine also the price paid by each of the purchaser-claimants for the portion of land which the native court might find to be theirs and that as soon as they had given their decision on the matters referred, and upon prior notice to the forestry officer, Cape Coast, to have the respective areas awarded to the parties or any of them, demarcated in the reserve in their presence.
Pursuant to the said order of the commissioner, the native court heard the case, and in their judgment delivered on the 2nd July, 1954, found against the second appellants, Atua Kwadjo & Co., on the grounds that the whole of the area they claimed in the reserve is comprised within the area claimed by Kwesi Akro & Co., and N. K. Asamoah & Co., and that since the grant the said second appellants relied upon to sustain their claim was made two years subsequent to the grants relied upon by the other two groups of claimants, their, i.e. the second appellants’, said [p.197] grant is null and void, their grantor, the Morkwa stool, having by the two earlier grants divested themselves of the whol