KIMON COMPANIA NAVIERA S.A.R.P. AND OTHERS v. VOLTA LINES LTD. (CONSOLIDATED)

JUDGMENT OF HAYFRON-BENJAMIN J.

These are thirteen different applications for orders to set aside the service of the writs of summons in thirteen suits. I have taken them together because the same issues of law and fact are raised in them.

On 10 July 1972, writs of summons were taken out on behalf of the plaintiffs claiming various sums totalling over four million cedis from the defendant company. The address of the plaintiffs in the title of each suit is given as "c/o Campbell & Co., House No. D.45/4, Knutsford Avenue, Accra.” The writs were taken out by Messrs. Campbell and Company and were signed by U. V. Campbell of Apagya Chambers, solicitor for the plaintiffs. The address of Campbell and Company is given as P.O. Box 214, Accra and the address for service endorsed on [p.142] the writ is D.45/4, Knutsford Avenue, Accra. It is stated on the writ that U. V. Campbell, the solicitor for the plaintiffs resides at Accra.

On the face of the writs of summons therefore the impression is created that the plaintiffs are companies resident or doing business in Accra, and having as their registered office or place of business house No. D.45/4, Accra. On receipt of the writs of summons the solicitor for the defendants rightly and promptly wrote to the Registrar-General's Department to ascertain whether these companies were registered either as local companies incorporated in Ghana or as external companies registered in Ghana under the provisions of the Companies Code, 1963 (Act 179). The Registrar-General's reply was in the negative. The defendants' solicitor was therefore justified to assume that the writs as taken out were incompetent in that they had been taken out on behalf of persons who have no legal capacity to sue. The purported plaintiffs are not natural persons, they are not partnerships carrying on business in Ghana, and they are not legal persons. The defendants' solicitor therefore filed a motion on notice to set aside the service of the writ. In the affidavit in support of the motion the grounds for the application are carefully and clearly set out. The affidavit states in paragraphs (3)-(5) that:

“(3) I am advised and verily believe that the said writ is null, void, invalid and of no effect and that the same should not have been accepted for filing and service on defendant since it offends against Order 3, r. 4, and Order 4, r. 1 (1) of the 1954 Rules of this court in that it does not state the address of the plaintiff.

(4) I have every reason