ADJI & COMPANY v. KUMANING
1982
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- FRANCOIS
- COUSSEY
- ABBAN JJ.A
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Equity and Trusts
- Evidence Law
- Civil Procedure
- Contract Law
1982
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This appeal concerns a long-standing dispute over Otwereso stool land near Otwereso in the Eastern Region. In 1951, a syndicate of farmers obtained a grant from the Otwereso stool, entered possession, and developed cocoa and food-crop farms. In 1970, their arrangement was formalized in a lease (exhibit D) with the Akyem Abuakwa paramount stools concurrence. The defendant, successor to his granduncle Nana Antwi Awuah, claimed a prior grant to his ancestor and sought to reclaim the land, but neither the ancestor nor his successor objected during the plaintiffs decades of occupation. The Circuit Court dismissed the plaintiffs claims and upheld the defendants counterclaim, relying on a letter (exhibit 7) written while litigation was pending. The Court of Appeal held exhibit 7 inadmissible, found estoppel by acquiescence, rejected the lease forfeiture theory, and ultimately allowed the appeal, dismissing the counterclaim and granting a perpetual injunction.
JUDGMENT OF ABBAN J.A.
The appeal is from the judgment of the Circuit Court, Koforidua. In the said judgment dated 24 November 1980, the learned circuit judge dismissed the claim of the appellants (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiffs). The plaintiffs had sued the defendant-respondent (hereinafter referred to as the defendant) for damages for trespass and perpetual injunction restraining the defendant, his assigns and privies from interfering with a piece of land, with cocoa and foodstuff farms thereon, lying at Kwaboadi No. 1, near Otwereso in the Eastern Region. The defendant also counterclaimed for a declaration of title and recovery of possession.
It was an undisputed fact that the land in dispute was a portion of the stool land of Otwereso, a sub-stool of the Akyem Abuakwa paramount stool. In 1951 the plaintiffs, a syndicate of farmers and strangers to both stools, obtained the disputed land from the Otwereso stool for farming purposes. The occupant of the Otwereso stool at that time was one Barima Ofosu Kwabi II who deputed his elders to demarcate the land for the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs performed the necessary customs appertaining to the grant. They then went into occupation of the land so granted and cultivated cocoa and food-crops farms thereon.
It was a condition of the grant that the plaintiffs were to present to the Otwereso stool one bottle schnapps plus a customary fee of ¢4.80 (four cedis eighty pesewas) every year. The plaintiffs observed this condition until 1970 when the paramount stool of Akyem Abuakwa, ostensibly acting with the consent of the Otwereso stool, raised the customary fee of four cedis eighty pesewas to ¢66 and described it as rent. A lease of some sort was then drawn up embodying fresh conditions. This lease was tendered as exhibit D.
The defendant admitted the grant made to the plaintiffs by the Otwereso stool. He also admitted the existence of the plaintiffs' lease, exhibit D. But his contention was that the disputed land formed part [p.1386] of forest land which the Otwereso stool had granted to his late granduncle, called Nana Antwi Awuah, for his services to the said stool. The said granduncle did not cultivate it and the stool by mistake granted the same forest land to the plaintiffs. So in 1973, after he had become customary successor of his granduncle, he petitioned the stool of Otwereso and the Stool Lands Revenue Office in Kibi, which was responsible for the administration of stool lands in the area,