February 17, 2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This Court of Appeal decision concerns a 12.99-acre Dawhenya land dispute. The Respondent claimed title from the Arden Darpoh family through its head, Nene Kweku Darpoh I, with a lease registered at the Land Title Registry, and asserted possession by fencing and placing a caretaker. Comfort Bamfo and Samuel Bamfo (1st and 2nd Appellants) and Eric Mensah Darpoh (5th Appellant) contended they purchased from the 5th Appellant, whom they characterized as the head of family, and granted subleases to third parties. On appeal, Appellants advanced technical challenges (nullity of a writ issued against Trespassers, improper joinder, and defective statement of truth ) and substantive arguments (weight of evidence, counterclaim, lineage/headship). The Court rejected the technical grounds, distinguishing misdescription from non-juristic status and upholding amendment under Order 16; it found witness statements valid. Substantively, the Court held the land is family land and the Respondents grant from the legitimate head (Pw4) was proven; the Appellants case faltered, including inconsistent pleadings about headship. The Court set aside the demolition order as not an execution method under C.I. 47, affirmed the rest of the judgment, and awarded costs of GHS 5,000 to the Respondent.
Baffour J.A:
Introduction:
At the heart of the controversy between the parties to this appeal is a wrangling over the ownership of a 12.99 acres of land as described in the schedule to the writ of summons at Dawhenya in the Dangbe West District of the Greater Accra Region. Whilst the trial Judge found the evidence of the Plaintiff/Respondent to be credible as having lawfully acquired the land from the legitimate head of family of the Arden Darpoh family of Dawhenya, the acclaimed owners of the land, it dismissed the case of the 1st, 2nd and 5th Defendants/Appellants. It further held that 5th Defendant could not have lawfully granted to 1st and 2nd Defendants/Appellants the land as 5th Defendant/Appellant was not clothed with the requisite capacity as head of family of Arden Darpoh family. This appeal by the 1st, 2nd and 5th Defendants/Appellants is a throw down of the gauntlet to the court to test the correctness of the decision of the learned trial Judge. The 1st, 2nd and 5th Defendants/Appellants would be referred to simply as Appellants whilst Plaintiff/Respondent as Respondent, unless the context otherwise admits that they be referred to by the designations that they bore at the trial court as Plaintiff and Defendants.
The Plaintiff’s Case
By a further amended writ and statement of claim, Respondent sought for declaration of title, recovery of possession, perpetual injunction, damages for trespass among other reliefs. It was his case that in 2006 he acquired through his sister the land in dispute from the Arden family acting per its lawful head Nene Kweku Darpoh I to establish a hospital in Ghana. That a lease was duly executed after which he proceeded to register same with a title certificate having been issued to him by the Land Title Registry. He contended that he took effective possession of the land and walled round the property and also constructed a single room with a caretaker placed to take charge of the land. Respondent further stated that despite all these overt acts of possession, Appellants forcefully entered the land and commenced what he termed as “haphazard residential building” on the land and forced the caretaker out of the land. Respondent also denied any claim that the 5th Appellant was the head of family of Arden Darpoh family as he purchased an empty land with nobody having had a prior grant. That any claim to the land by Appellants was through the Osuwem family and they only made a volte face when they realized that the Osuwe