SAM QUARSHIE v. EDDIE KUSI ANKOMAH

PWAMANG JSC:-

My Lords, this appeal emanates from a land suit the plaintiff/respondent/respondent (the plaintiff) filed in the High Court, Accra and claimed for declaration of title, damages and injunction in respect of a piece of land at Shiashie, Accra that the defendant/appellant/appellant (the defendant) was in the process of developing.

By his statement of claim, the plaintiff averred that he acquired the land by a lease dated 1st September, 1999 from the Appantse We Family of Shiashe, got it registered at the Land Title Registry and he was issued with a Land Certificate dated 23rd March, 2002. On acquisition he placed some persons on the land and they sold pavement and other blocks on it. He averred that he was in peaceful possession until sometime in June, 2017 when the defendant forcibly entered the land and started to develop it. He reported a case against the defendant to the police but they could not resolve his complaint hence the suit in court.

The defendant filed a statement of defence and stated that the piece of land he was developing did not form part of the land that was granted to the plaintiff and that it was the same Appantse We Family of Shiashie who granted the land he defendant was developing to him by a lease dated 1st August, 2014. He pleaded that before acquiring his land he conducted searches which showed the land to be vacant. According to him, when he entered the land and the plaintiff challenged him and reported a case to the police, the police after listening to him caused the government surveyors to conduct two surveys of the disputed land using the documents given to the plaintiff and himself and the result of the two surveys showed that his land only shares a boundary with the plaintiff’s land but that the two grants cover different lands. The defendant stated that as the survey reports established that his building operations were on his land and did not extend to the plaintiff’s land, the police permitted him to continue with his works.

According to the record before us, no reply to the statement of defence was filed by the plaintiff but at the trial the plaintiff under cross-examination admitted that before the case was filed the police caused the survey of the land and that two survey reports were produced. He however countered by saying that those surveys were not valid. The defendant tendered the two composite plans that were produced by the government surveyors on the request of the police. We notice that the t