JUDGMENT OF ROGER KORSAH J.
The defendant-applicant-appellant, hereinafter referred to as the applicant, was a tenant to the respondent. On 9 August 1977, the respondent commenced an action for ejectment against the applicant under section 17 (1) (a) of the Rent Act, 1963 (Act 220), for non-payment of rent. The said section, in effect, forbids any court of competent jurisdiction from making an order for recovery of possession or ejectment against any tenant in accordance with the provisions of any other enactment for the time being in force except in circumstances provided under section 17; section 17 (1) (a) gives statutory authority to a landlord to apply for recovery of possession or ejectment, "where any rent lawfully due from the tenant has not been paid or tendered within one month after the date on which it became lawfully due."
The applicant admittedly was, at the time of the issue of the writ, eleven months in arrear with his rent, but had by 18 August 1977, that is, before the commencement of hearing of the action, paid up all the arrears, leaving only the mesne profits outstanding.
[p.73]
Were it not for the exclusion by section 17 "of the provisions of any other enactment for the time being in force" no problem would be posed by section 111 (1) of the Courts Act, 1971 (Act 372), which provides (among other things) that section 212 of the English Common Law Procedure Act, 1852 (15 & 16 Vict., c. 76), is a statute of general application in Ghana. The said section 212 of the Common Law Procedure Act reads:
"If the tenant or his assignee do or shall, at any time before the trial in such ejectment, pay or tender to the lessor or landlord, his executors or administrators, or his or their attorney in that cause, or pay into the Court where the same cause is depending, all the rent and arrears, together with the costs, then and in such case, all further proceedings on the said ejectment shall cease and be discontinued; and if such lessee, his executors, administrators, or assigns, shall, upon such proceedings as aforesaid, be relieved in equity, he and they shall have, hold, and enjoy the demised lands, according to the lease thereof made, without any new lease."
(The emphasis is mine.)
I intend first, to consider the law governing forfeiture for non-payment of rent under the Rent Act, 1963 (Act 220), before I turn to the effect that section 212 of the Common Law Procedure Act, 1852, has on that law, if any.
Under the Rent Act, 1963, the land
