COMET CONSTRUCTION CO., LTD. v. GHANA COMMERCIAL BANK, TEMA (GARNISHEE)

JUDGMENT OF AMISSAH J.A.

This appeal is from a ruling by Anterkyi J. refusing to commit the managers of the Tema and Republic House branches of the [p.223] Ghana Commercial Bank (hereafter called the bank for convenience) for contempt of court. The grievance of the appellants, Comet Construction Co. Ltd., (hereafter called Comet) arises out of the following circumstances. In 1965 they obtained damages to the tune of about £671,083, now ¢142,166,000, in an action against the Tema Development Corporation (T.D.C.). Of this amount ¢62,000.00 was paid by the judgment debtors, leaving a balance of just over ¢80,000.00 unpaid. In 1969, Comet brought garnishee proceedings against the Tema branch of the bank, who were reputed to be holding large sums of money in favour of T.D.C. An order absolute was made in those proceedings by the High Court in favour of Comet. They expected to get ¢80,000.00 into their hands as a result. These expectations were shattered. They could not get their hands on a single cedi of the amount.

What had happened was that the Tema branch of the bank, had transferred the money to Comet's account at the Republic House branch of the same bank. At that branch, Comet had an overdraft of ¢95,962.83 which had been outstanding since 31 March 1963. The ¢80,000.00 transferred into this account was therefore swallowed up by this overdraft. When, after the transfer of the amount garnished the managing director of Comet drew a cheque for ¢1,000.00 on the company's account at Republic House, it was dishonoured. It has been pointed out that Comet still owe the bank nearly ¢16,000.00 on their account at Republic House.

Comet's complaint against the manager of the Tema branch of the bank was that it was not for him to decide how to pay the amount ordered to be paid to them in the garnishee proceedings. His duty was to wait until Comet had directed his branch what to do with the money. In acting without instructions from Comet he had flouted the court order and had therefore acted in contempt.

Against the manager of the Republic House branch of the bank the alleged contempt lies in the fact that he refused to pay over the amount that he had received on Comet's behalf, or at least ¢1,000.00 of it which was demanded on the cheque which Comet drew. According to Comet, he had no right to keep money which by court order was to be paid to the company and in deciding to keep the money the manager of the Republic House branch of the bank equally