1951
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This case involves a complex land dispute over the ownership of Anekpo land. The plaintiff, representing the Adjorkli family, claimed ownership and sought damages for trespass. The defendants contested this claim. The trial court granted the plaintiff general ownership but excepted certain portions, including land sold to Chief Gbenyo V and Fia Adama II. The plaintiff appealed this decision, arguing against the exclusion of these portions from his ancestral property. The appeal was dismissed by the Native Appeal Court and further appealed to the present court. The court upheld the lower courts' decisions, finding no justification to interfere with their judgment. The court emphasized that the trial court's decision was based on evidence presented, including witness testimonies and land inspection. It also affirmed that the defendants were entitled to support the trial court's findings in their favor, even if their case basis had evolved. The court concluded that the plaintiff-appellant had no valid claim to the two disputed portions of land and dismissed the appeal with costs.
Judgment:
This is an appeal from a decision of the Native Court "B" of the Agbosome Area delivered on the 18th May, 1948, which was confirmed on appeal to the Native Appeal Court of Anlo State at Keta on the 21st February, 1949.
The plaintiff claimed "for himself and as head and representative of other members of the Adjorkli family of Klikor" and his claim was for "a declaration of title of ownership of all that piece of land commonly known and called 'Anekpo land', the property of plaintiff's ancestor Adjorkli of Klikor-Ablorgame" and he also claimed £25 damages for trespass by the defendants on a piece of land called Ahetowutegble forming part of the Anekpo land. The defendants put forward the defence that they were the owners of the land in dispute and joined issue on the question of title.
The claim had been the subject of abortive and somewhat leisurely litigation which began in 1926 and only came to final hearing and decision by the Paramount Tribunal of the Anlo State on the 3rd December, 1942. This decision however was set aside on appeal by the Provincial Commissioner's Court on the 2nd September, 1944, on the ground that the action had been begun and part-heard in 1926 and then discontinued and that when the hearing was continued in 1942 a different set of councillors heard the remaining evidence and gave judgment on evidence of which a part only had been heard by them. The suit was remitted to the Paramount Tribunal for hearing de novo; but soon afterwards the Tribunal ceased to exist and the case, after a lapse of some years, came before the Native Court "B" of the Agbosome area, whose decision dated the 18th May, 1948, is the subject of this appeal.
This decision was that the plaintiff succeeded generally in his claim as against the defendants in respect of the Anekpo land, but that a certain portion of the land, which the Court found to have been granted in ancient times by plaintiff's predecessors to a woman named Nyonuwodey, an ancestress of the defendants, was lawfully in the possession of her descendants and was to remain so. Had the judgment rested there all would have been well, for the appellant is not pressing any claim to that portion. But it also contained a statement that two other pieces of land which form part of the land in dispute, the Anekpo land, and which had been sold by the defendants' predecessor to Chief Gbenyo V and Fia Adama II respectively, had been lawfully alienated and must therefore be excepted from the land