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JUDGMENT
JUDGMENT
In this suit, the plaintiff, which is the Denyase Stool, per its occupant Nana Owusu Adueni III has invited this court to do two things namely: (i) to terminate the agreement between the parties as same has been breached by the Defendant and (ii) to revert interest in the land in issue to the Plaintiff.
The Plaintiff' s case appears quite simple and straight forward on the face of it but indeed it is in a class of its own. It is that on or about February, 2013, the Denyasi stool acting per its occupant entered into an agreement with the Defendant for the sale of one hundred (100) acres of land for a total consideration of GH¢ 460,000.00. After using GH¢ 160,000.00 out of this sum to compensate farmers on the land, the defendant allegedly convinced the plaintiff to invest the balance of GH¢ 300.00 in its micro finance business. It is the Plaintiff's case that after the maturity period, the Defendant failed to re-pay the sum of GH¢ of GH¢ 362, 605.17 which had become due, and has refused to do so to date. On the basis of the foregoing, the Plaintiff claimed that it is no longer interested in the money the Defendant owes them but will rather take over the land the subject matter of the contract.
The Defendant caused its lawyer to file a defence on its behalf and after a failed attempt to settle the matter at the pre-trial stage, issues were set down for trial. Consequently, orders were made for the filing of witness statements. The Plaintiff filed its witness statement on 22/03/2016 and same was served on counsel for the Defendant on 24/03/2016 (see affidavit of service filed on 29/03/2016 and deposed by Alex Akumey of the EMS Court Process Services). As at 11/05/2016, the Defendant had not filed its witness statement and so the court extended the time for doing so by 21 days. On 17/05/2016 and 19/05/2016, the Plaintiff's pre-trial check-list and a hearing notice were duly served on the Defendant's lawyer (see affidavits of service filed on 18/05/2016 and 02/06/2016 by the same EMS process server). At the scheduled Case Management Conference on 17/06/2016, the Defendant and its counsel were absent although they had been served with hearing notice. In accordance with Order 32 rule 7A (3) (b) of the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2004 C.I. 47, as amended by the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules , 2014 C.I. 87 , the statement of defence filed by the Defendant was accordingly struck out. The said rule reads:
“Where a party has failed to comply w