July 14, 2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This Ghana Court of Appeal decision, authored by Justice Richard Adjei‑Frimpong JA, arose from compensation payments for lands in the Pai Traditional Area affected by state acquisition under the State Lands (Volta River Flooded Area) (Amended) Instrument, 1975 E.I.67. In an earlier Fast Track Division case, an interlocutory order restrained the respondents from receiving future compensation and directed that any sums be received by the Registrar and invested. The Lands Commission and the Director of the Land Valuation Division, though not parties to that suit, administered compensation and deposited one tranche but withheld depositing a subsequent GHS 1,917,233.03, keeping it in their safe and later lodging it months after final judgment. Respondents then sued for declarations of constructive trust and interest linked to Bank of Ghana 91‑day Treasury bills. The trial judge found breach and implied a constructive trust. On appeal, the Court affirmed breach (non‑compliance) but held no fiduciary relationship existed and constructive trust could not be implied, emphasizing the Registrar’s investment mandate, absence of unjust enrichment, and the merger of interlocutory orders into final judgment. The appeal was allowed and the trial judgment set aside.
RICHARD ADJEI-FRIMPONG JA:
The suit now on appeal before us was a progeniture of a previous litigation at the then Fast Track Division of the High Court, Accra. Commenced some time in 2009, the said suit touched on the payment of compensation to beneficiaries who had suffered state acquisition of their lands under the State Lands (Volta River Flooded Area) (Amended) Instrument, 1975 E.I.67.
The respondents herein were the defendants in that suit. They had been sued by certain persons who were before the court, essentially, to challenge the legitimacy of payment of outstanding tranches of compensation to the respondents.
The appellants before us, the Lands Commission and the Director, Land Valuation Division were not parties to that suit. Apparently, they had been drawn into the matter for being in charge statutorily, of the payment of the compensation to the beneficiaries.
In the course of the action, the Fast Track Court made an order of interlocutory injunction which was later to become the subject of controversy between the appellants and respondents. The said order, put shortly, restrained further payment of the accrued tranches to the respondents and mandated the appellants (though not specifically named in the order) to deposit any such tranches as they fell due, at the registry of the Fast Track Court. The registrar was to deposit the amounts in an income yielding account pending the determination of the issues in controversy.
It is common ground that the tranche that immediately followed the order involving a sum of GHS 848,583.75 was deposited at the registry by the appellants.
The subsequent tranche involving a calculated amount of GHS 1,917,233.03 was however not deposited. For reasons that were put forth by the appellants in the course of the trial at the court below, they kept the money in their safe. This was in spite of demands contained in various correspondence of the respondents on them to lodge the money at the registry of the court. It was some time later, indeed some months after the Fast Track Court had delivered a final decision in favour of the respondents that the appellants deposited the money at the registry.
Disgruntled by the conduct of the appellants in keeping the money without it being invested for the period of the default, the respondents sued the appellants at the court below for the foregoing reliefs:
(a) A declaration that the defendants held the amount of GHS 1,917,237.03 between 1st July 2013 and 16th December