REPUBLIC v. CHIEF LANDS OFFICER; EX PARTE ALLOTEY AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF KORANTENG-ADDOW J.

This is an application for an order of mandamus to compel the Chief Lands Officer, the head of a government department, to perform his statutory duty, by registering a number of conveyances relating to land belonging to the Onamrokor Adain family which the Chief Lands Officer had refused or failed to register.

The applicant is the joint head of the Onamrokor family. The other joint head is B. A. Quarcoo. The appointment was one of the terms of settlement of a case entitled Quarcoo v. Allotey which was before Abban J. and which was settled and the terms of settlement incorporated into Abban J.'s judgment, dated 23 December 1974.

On 18 March 1976, the caretaker of the applicant family wrote to the chief lands officer, on behalf of the family informing him that signatories to conveyances of the family's land would be the applicant and five others whose names were listed, but which excluded the name of the other joint head of family, B. A. Quarcoo. The Chief Lands Officer replied that since the notice was not in terms of the judgment of Abban J. incorporating the terms of the settlement, he would not recognise documents which were signed outside the terms of the judgment. True to his word, all the 164 documents in respect of conveyances made by the family and which were presented for registration in compliance with section 24 (1) of the Land Registry Act, 1962 (Act 122), were not registered by the respondent. The solicitors for the applicant in two separate letters dated 30 April 1976 and 24 January 1980 drew the attention of the respondent to his statutory duty under section 3 of Act 122, but they fell on deaf ears. The applicant was compelled to apply for this order to compel the respondent [p.973] to register the title deeds. The list of names of persons to whom conveyances have been made has been exhibited to this application. There are 164 grantees.

Even though the respondent filed an affidavit in opposition to the application, he did not appear in court nor was he represented at the hearing of the application. In the affidavit in opposition filed, the respondent contended that by virtue of the consent judgment, the applicant is only a joint head of family, and that persons entitled to execute the documents are the joint heads with the consent and concurrence of the accredited elders of the family. The respondent relied on a dispute between the two joint heads which culminated in the judgment of Wiredu J., in suit No.