ADJEI v. GRUMAH

JUDGMENT OF JIAGGE J.A.

Jiagge J.A. delivered the judgment of the court. This appeal is from the judgment of the High Court, Sunyani, allowing in favour of the defendant, an appeal against the decision of the District Court, Grade II, Goaso. The plaintiff's claim was for general damages for trespass and specific damages for the crops destroyed on the land in dispute.

The plaintiff, a "stranger" at Mim, claimed that he rendered services as the chairman of the Mim Town Board and that he married a wife from Mim. He applied to the Mimhene for land to cultivate and after paying the customary fee of NC5 and a bottle of schnapps, he was granted virgin forest land on which he planted cocoa and other crops. He alleged that the defendant entered his farm and damaged 100 cocoa trees.

The defendant denied the allegation and asserted that he purchased the virgin forest land for N¢80 from the Mimhene and that he destroyed no crops because the area he cultivated was virgin forest land. The Mimhene, giving evidence for the defendant, admitted that he and his elders sold to the defendant virgin forest land within the area granted earlier to the plaintiff. The Mimhene claimed that he in 1967, ordered an inspection of the area granted to the plaintiff for farming in 1951; that upon the report received, he and his elders decided to re-enter and sell the virgin forest land which the plaintiff had failed to cultivate to anyone requiring land for farming.

The plaintiff for about twenty years after his acquisition was able to cultivate only a small portion of the area granted to him. The Mimhene asserted that according to the local custom the stool had the right to re-enter a stool land that was not acquired by purchase, whenever there was failure to develop it within a reasonable time after the land had been acquired. The Mimhene asserted that the stool re-entered the virgin forest land appurtenant to the plaintiff's secondary forest on the ground that the plaintiff failed to reduce the land in dispute to actual possession within the twenty years of the grant and that the stool had the right of re-entry even for much shorter periods of default.

The district court accepted the evidence of the Mimhene but held that the court was not satisfied that the right to re-enter on failure to cultivate was made known to the plaintiff. He held: "I accordingly find that no condition of forfeiture for non-development was attached to the grant of the land to the plaintiff" and that "the Mi