2019
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Writing for the Court of Appeal, Mabel M. Agyemang (Mrs.) JA dismissed an appeal by leaders of the Presbyterian Church, Mpraeso, who sought to overturn a High Court judgment that had found their claims against lawyer Kwaku Baah to be statute-barred. The dispute concerned land at Mpraeso, including the Atani hill, which Baah developed extensively after a grant made around 1972–1975. While the plaintiffs asserted the grant was only two plots, a church draftsman (PW1, Mr. Gyekye) later produced a fourteen-plot site plan for Baah and testified that by 1977 the plaintiffs had discovered Baah’s development beyond two plots. Applying Asante v Bogyabi’s corroboration principle, and finding the plaintiffs’ representative less credible, the court held adverse possession began in 1977. Under Section 10 of the Limitation Act (NRCD 54), the plaintiffs’ right to recover the twelve extra plots was extinguished by 2002. The High Court’s judgment was upheld; the appeal was dismissed, with no order as to costs.
AGYEMANG (MRS.) JA:
In this appeal against the judgment of the High Court, Nkawkaw, delivered on the 2nd of May 2008, the plaintiffs/appellants herein seek the setting aside of the said judgment of the court below, as well as the entry of judgment in their favour.
These are the matters antecedent to the instant appeal.
Sometime in 1972 or 1975 (as the case may be), the respondent herein, a lawyer, a native of Mpraeso Kwahu, and a member of the Presbyterian Church, Mpraeso, Kwahu, approached the leaders of the church: the plaintiffs\appellants herein, for the grant of a parcel of land. Having obtained the grant, the respondent proceeded to develop same. Before the said development took place, a draftsman, one of the leaders of the church went with the defendant/respondent and one other from the church, to demarcate the land included in the grant to the respondent.
The said draftsman, who gave evidence as PW1 in the instant suit, sometime after the grant, produced a site plan of fourteen plots covering the said grant, for the defendant/respondent.
It was the case of the plaintiffs/appellants (hereafter referred to as the plaintiffs), that the grant consisted of two (2) plots of land which grant followed a request for four (4) plots of land made by the defendant/respondent (defendant) to the plaintiffs. The said parcel of land included in the grant was allegedly to be used for residential purposes only.
It was the case of the plaintiffs that sometime after the grant, it having come to their notice that the defendant had put up three residential houses, as well as cultivated fruits, spices, and teak trees on fourteen plots instead of the two plots allegedly granted to him, invited him for a meeting. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant spurned all invitations extended to him, to meet with them on the subject of his alleged encroachment on additional land belonging to the plaintiffs.
Thus did the plaintiffs commence suit at the court below seeking inter alia, the following declaratory reliefs: a declaration that the plaintiffs were the lessees of all that piece or parcel of land described under an attached schedule; a declaration that plaintiffs granted two plots of land measuring 200’ by 200’ within the larger piece or parcel of land contained in the plaintiffs’ said leasehold property; a declaration that defendant had trespassed unto additional land, making up fourteen plots (more or less) of plaintiffs’ said land which had not been granted to de