SASRAKU v. DAVID & ORS.

Granville Sharp J. A.:

The claim in this action was for a declaration of title to and ownership of land, and for an injunction to restrain the defendants from trespassing on the said land.

The plaintiff, as representative of a family-company of Teshie people, based his title to the land upon three documents dated 23rd December, 1927, 4th August, 1934 and 12th April, 1935 [p.10] respectively, by which (he claimed) the said land had been sold to him absolutely in three parcels by the Stool of Chempaw. The co-defendant in the suit, representing the Stool of Kokofu, bore the whole burden of the defence, the defendant Sawmill Company simply relying on the protection of a felling agreement granted to them by the Kokofu Stool, and dated 30th October, 1953.

The co-defendant did not admit that the land was sold as alleged by the plaintiff, and contended further (a) that land is not alienable by sale in Ashanti, and (b) that if there had been any sale by the Chempaw Stool it was a sale made without the knowledge or consent of the Paramount Stool (the co-defendant), and was therefore invalid.

The co-defendant further, by amendment of his pleading, counter-claimed for a declaration of title to the land in dispute, for recovery of possession as against the plaintiff, and for damages for trespass as against the plaintiff.

Both the claim and the counter-claim, therefore, contended for absolute ownership of the land which was the subject matter of the action.

It was not disputed that the co-defendant was the Paramount Stool served by the Chempaw Stool, and the Chempaw Stool did not appear to dispute the sales set up by the plaintiff.

There was no dispute, either, as to the identity of the land in question, and Counsel for the co-defendant admitted that the lands described in the several documents produced by the plaintiff constituted, in fact, the whole of the land for which the rival claims were set up in the action.

At the trial the plaintiff admitted that the documents in themselves could not, in the light of the Concessions Ordinance, be relied upon as constituting valid documents of title, but contended that they had important evidentiary value as being confirmatory of the earlier customary sales to which they referred and at which, in each case, the custom of 'Guaha' had been performed. The family company represented by the plaintiff was a Ga family, and would seem to have wished, ex abundanti cautela, that the Ga custom should be observed, even in Ashanti