SOKOTO AND ANOTHER v. THE REPUBLIC

JUDGMENT OF NYINAH J.A.

Kingsley-Nyinah J.A. delivered the judgment of the court. This is an appeal against convictions by his honour Isaac Amoah, circuit judge, [p.374] Takoradi, who after due trial, sentenced each appellant herein to a term of seven years’ imprisonment with hard labour, on 8 September 1971.

As against the first appellant, the indictment alleged that he had in his “possession without lawful authority or excuse, four (4) forged N¢10 currency notes knowing the same to be forged.” The same allegation was levelled against the second appellant who was, however, charged with “possessing… five hundred and forty-five (545) forged N¢10 notes knowing the same to be forged.” This offence is contrary to section 18 (2) of the Currency Act, 1964 (Act 242).

By two certificates, exhibits L and M, dated 17 August 1970, and given under the hand of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, the prosecution established beyound question the fact that all those currency notes the subject-matter of the charge, were “imitations of a bank note and are not bank notes issued or deemed to be issued by the Bank of Ghana.”

The facts of this case not being in dispute, we do not intend setting them out at length, except to point at such significant features so as to bring this case well within the provisions of the Currency Act, 1964:

(a) In the course of a search by the police of house No. 73/3, Liberation Road, Takoradi, the first appellant was found in a room.

(b) That room was admitted by the first appellant to be occupied by him and to be also under his control, as the paying tenant.

(c) The search yielded a quantity of both genuine and spurious Ghana currency notes.

(d) The counterfeit notes were discovered carefully hidden away under the first appellant’s floor carpet; the genuine notes were found in a purse.

(e) The first appellant admitted that these faked notes belong to him. But he explained that they had gotten into his custody and possession from a certain Nigerian friend to whom he had sold two automatic wrist watches and, furthermore, that he never knew those notes were forged notes.

(f) In another room occupied by the second appellant (but in a different house) the police found in the pocket of a jumper hanging on a wall, a hospital card bearing the second appellant’s name, together with two five-cedi Ghana currency notes, each a counterfeit. There was a bed in that room; underneath that bed, and under the pillow on that bed, the police further disco