KWAME OPOKU vs WENCHI METHODIST SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL & ORS
July 4, 2024
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- HIS LORDSHIP JUSTICE FREDERICK A.W.K. NAWURAH.
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Civil Procedure
- Evidence Law
- Tort Law
July 4, 2024
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Kwame Opoku, a property developer, sued Wenchi Methodist Senior High School and its agents for a declaration of title, possession, damages, and an injunction over plots 8A and 8B in Wenchi. He claimed a customary grant from the Wenchi Traditional Council in 2000, regularized in 2003, and presented a site plan and a 2013 confirmation letter. The defendants denied ownership, asserting the land formed part of plot 8 including staff bungalows allocated to the school by government since the 1960s, alleged forgery, and counterclaimed. The High Court held that fraud requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt and was not established, gave evidentiary weight to the 2009 municipal site plan showing no plots 8A/8B, found the land is government property under the Municipal Assembly, applied nemo dat to invalidate the Traditional Council’s purported grant, dismissed the plaintiff’s claims, adjudged plot 8 to the school, cancelled plaintiff’s documents, and awarded damages and costs with a perpetual injunction.
The plaintiff, a property or real estate developer, per his writ of summons, claims against the defendants a declaration of title and recovery of possession of Plots Nos.
8A and 8B Block ‘A’ Sector 2, Wenchi.
The plaintiff also prays for general damages for trespass, and an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, workmen and assigns from interfering with his title and possession of the said plots of land.
The plaintiff’s case is that sometime in the year 2000 he was customarily granted two plots of land, situate at a place where the Colonial Government bungalows were located, by the Wenchi Traditional Council and he paid the necessary customary‘drink’ to the Council.
Subsequently, on the 10th of April, 2003, he formally applied for the said plots from the Wenchi Traditional Council and the customary grant made earlier on to him was regularized and approved by the Traditional Council acting by the late Omanhene Ampem Osagyefo Abrefa Mbore Bediatuo VI in conjunction with the then Wenchi District Assembly.
He was then issued with the relevant site plan on the said plot numbers 8A and 8B Block 'A' Sector 2, Wenchi, which were duly endorsed by the Omanhene and President of the Wenchi Traditional Area/Council, and he has been paying the necessary fees to the Wenchi Traditional Council and the Wenchi Traditional Assembly.
According to the plaintiff, the said plots were situate at a place where Colonial Government bungalows were located but the Government later relinquished the vacant portions of the land there to the Wenchi Traditional Council which demarcated same into building plots and allocated same to prospective developers, including him, and most of the allotees of the said plots have developed their plots.
It is the case of the plaintiff that the 1st defendant (the Wenchi Senior Secondary School) and its agents are laying adverse claim to the two plots and are interfering with his work and that of his agents on the plot.
The plaintiff avers that the 2nd and 3rd defendants, purporting to be acting on behalf of the 1st defendant, stopped and drove away agents whom he sent to work on the said plots.
The plaintiff avers that the defendants’ claim to the land is apparently based on the fact that staff of the 1st defendant school occupy some of the Colonial Government bungalows at that place.
The plaintiff maintains that the defendants will not refrain from their acts of trespass on the land unless they are restrained b