THE PLOT ALLOCATION COMMITTEE & ANOTHER v. NANA OPPONG GYAN
2013
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- AYEBI J.A. (PRESIDING)
- IRENE C. DANQUAH J.A.
- TANKO I. O. AMADU J.A
Areas of Law
- Customary Law
- Land Law
- Appellate Procedure
2013
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The judgment of the trial judge declaring title in favour of the plaintiff's family for three pieces of land is upheld. The appeal by the defendants is dismissed. The plaintiff's family, having been compensated with 40 plots, does not render the action moot. The customary law freehold interest of the plaintiff is protected, and the defendants' position is rejected.
AYEBI J.A.
Asuotiano must have been blessed with visionary traditional leaders who in conjunction with the people and the Town and Country Planning Department of the Dormaa District Assembly devised a scheme for the orderly development of the two. That scheme was the formation of the Plot Allocation Committee made up of members of the town led by a traditional leader.
With the growth in population and expansion in size, farming lands which have become outskirt or urban land because of their proximity to the town were demarcated by the Town and Country Planning Department into residential, industrial or commercial and public plots. The Plots Allocation Committee is the body authorized to allocate plots to any beneficiary for any of the purposes a particular plot is earmarked for. By way of compensation, a family which looses its land to the scheme is compensated with a umber of plots upon request.
The case of plaintiff/respondent (whom I shall refer to as plaintiff) is that his family owned three pieces of farming land at Asuotiano. Originally, his ancestors/ancestresses cultivated cocoa farms on the pieces of land. When the cocoa tress withered, the land turned fallow. But they continued to be in effective possession by cultivating same piecemeal for their food and other requirements.
From the pleadings, it does not appear that the plaintiff was against the scheme. Rather he was aggrieved and dissatisfied with the way the scheme was implemented as regards his family lands. It is his case that the Committee under the auspices of the 2nd defendant, without the consent, authority and concurrence of his family earmarked and demarcated his family land for various purposes and actually allocated them to prospective developers and monies realized were given to the 2nd defendant. The plaintiff considered this act of the defendants as wrong and unlawful as it amounted to trespass to his family land.
In his writ of summons, the plaintiff claimed for himself as head of the Ankamano family of Asuotiano and on behalf of the family against the defendants jointly and severally the following:
1. A declaration of title and recovery of possession of:
a. all that piece or parcel of land lying and being at a place commonly known and called “Adeyepena” at Asuotiano on Dormaa Stool land and having common boundaries with Wamfie Cemetry, Akosua Mansah (deceased), the property of Wamfie Presbyterian Church, Asabere (deceased), Oppong Kwadwo, Abena Taabea (deceased) and Ber