NII TETTEY OPREMEREH II & ANOTHER v. KOMEXA LIMITED & OTHERS
2021
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- DOTSE, JSC (PRESIDING)
- DORDZIE (MRS.), JSC
- AMADU, JSC
- PROF. MENSA-BONSU (MRS.), JSC
- KULENDI, JSC
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Property and Real Estate Law
2021
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Supreme Court of Ghana, per A. M. A. Dordzie (JSC), considered the Lands Commission’s application for stay of execution pending appeal arising from a land dispute over East Legon parcels compulsorily acquired in 1944. The 4th and 5th Respondents, aligned with the La Stool and a family claiming usufructuary rights, asserted unpaid compensation ordered by the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast in 1947, and obtained success in the High Court and, largely, in the Court of Appeal, which imposed a perpetual injunction insulating specified parcels from Lands Commission interference under Rule 32 of C.I. 19. The Lands Commission argued arguable grounds, discovery of fresh evidence showing compensation payments, and ongoing enforcement actions—fence wall demolitions and dispossession—risking irreparable harm and multiplicity of suits. Applying flexible stay principles from Ofosu-Addo and NDK, the Court granted a stay and suspended processing of transactions pending appeal.
ORDZIE (MRS.) JSC:-
BACKGROUND
The Plaintiffs/Respondents in this application instituted an action in the High Court, Lands Division Accra against the named Defendants in the title of this case in respect of some parcels of land situate at East Legon. The subject parcels of land form part of a track of land the State compulsorily acquired in 1944. The 4th & 5th Defendants/Respondents had maintained that by a judgment of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast dated 28th February 1947, they were to receive eight thousand five hundred and forty Pounds (8,540) as compensation for the compulsory acquisition, however, the state failed to pay them. They therefore put up a counter claim seeking the following reliefs:
a) A declaration that the La Stool is the original allodial owner of the land in dispute and the 5th Defendant family is the original usufructuary owner of the land in dispute.
b) An order that the government pays the 4th and 5th Defendants/Respondents compensation on the land in dispute with interest from the day of acquisition to the date of final payment.
c) Perpetual injunction restraining the Plaintiffs/Respondents their families, assigns, agents, servants, or any person or bodies claiming through them from further development or interference with the land in dispute.
The trial High Court in its judgment dated 22nd February 2017 dismissed the Plaintiffs’ claims but granted the 4th and 5th Respondents’ counter-claim ordering the Applicant herein to pay the 4th and 5th Respondents the compensation adjudged by the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast plus interest at the prevailing bank rate at simple interest from the day of the acquisition to the date of final payment.
The applicant dissatisfied with this decision appealed to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal in its majority decision dismissed the appeal; it however found the High Court’s order for payment of compensation to the 4th and 5th Respondents, (in its words) ‘unreasonable and unjustifiable’. It therefore substituted the High Court’s orders with the following consequential orders: “ consequently since the leases granted by the appellant are for both residential and commercial purposes, we hold that all remaining undeveloped parcels of land and those being occupied or developed by the 3rd and 4th Respondents, (that is the 4th and 5th Respondents in this application) their subjects, agents, privies or grantees for similar purposes, which fall within the area of the 3rd and 4th respond