July 27, 2022
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Supreme Court of Ghana, per Amegatcher JSC, resolved an appeal stemming from a land dispute between respondent Shadrach Sossou Kede, a self‑employed resident of Ashongman Estates, and appellant Nii Lantei Lamptey (formerly known as Nii Forster), the chief of Nsakina. Kede alleged he acquired land from the then Nsakina chief in April 2006, built a three‑bedroom house to lintel level by August 2015, and that Lamptey organized a bulldozer crew to raze the structure. The High Court declared title, granted possession and injunction, and awarded special damages of GHC 74,614.41. The Court of Appeal struck out the appellant’s appeal as out of time. The Supreme Court reversed the strike‑out, holding that filing an extension application within six months satisfies Rule 9 of C.I. 19, and then used Article 129(4) to decide the merits. It found Exhibit A was unstamped and the land unregistered, so legal title failed but possessory title was proved, attributed the demolition to Lamptey, set aside special damages, and awarded general damages of GHC 50,000. Owusu JSC issued a separate opinion concluding the appeal should fail.
AMEGATCHER JSC:-
FACTS
This is an appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal dated 28th July 2021. Per their pleadings, the respondent is a self-employed Ghanaian and lives at Ashongman Estates, a suburb of Accra. The appellant is a royal of the Nsakina stool and the current chief of Nsakina. It is the case of the respondent that sometime on 12th April 2006 he negotiated and acquired a parcel of land at Nsakina from the then chief of Nsakina who later gave him an indenture evidencing the transaction. The respondent avers that he remained in uninterrupted peaceful possession until January 2012 when he started the construction of his three-bedroom private residence and reached lintel level by August 2015. By this time, he had been in possession for nine years and some months.
It is the case of the respondent that the appellant who has a relationship with the royal family of Nsakina entered his land in August 2015 and with the assistance of thugs caused massive destruction of the building valued at Ghc74, 614.40. The respondent reported this wrongful damage of his property to the police and also to the royal family who promised to resolve the matter but after waiting for some time without any resolution he decided to go to court to claim Ghc100, 000.00 damages for the destruction and perpetual injunction to restrain the defendant from interfering with his rights and quiet enjoyment of the property.
After service of the respondent’s writ and statement of claim, the appellant filed his defence denying any knowledge of the land, the grant of any land to the respondent as well as leading thugs to destroy the respondent’s property or ordering or supervising any person to carry out that destruction of respondent’s property. The appellant further denied any knowledge of any complaint about the destruction of property lodged against him at the police station. He also denied any knowledge of any meeting or settlement of the issue between the royal family and the respondent and put the respondent to strict proof of all the averments in his statement of claim.
On 29th November 2016, the respondent applied for leave to amend his writ of summons and statement of claim. Leave was granted to the respondent on 8th December 2016 and he was ordered to file his amended writ and statement of claim within one week. There is no indication in the ROA that the pursuant amended writ and statement of claim were filed. However, because of the references made to the amended pl