WORDIE AND OTHERS v. AWUDU BUKARI

JUDGMENT OF ARCHER J.A.

Archer J.A. delivered the judgment of the court. Twenty-five years have almost elapsed since Jackson J. delivered his monumental judgment in Ashrifi v. Golightly (1951) D.C. (Land) '48-'51, 312, popularly known as the Kokomlemle consolidated cases and one would have thought that there would be no further controversy as that judgment had finally decided the boundary between the Ga, Gbese and Korle stools on the one hand and the Osu stool on the other, a boundary which was confirmed by the West African Court of Appeal sub nom. Golightly v. Ashrifi (1955) 14 W.A.C.A. 676, and by the Privy Council [1961] G.L.R. 28, P.C. Unfortunately, in this appeal, controversy has been generated by the inability of the parties to produce the original plan by reference to which Jackson J. wrote and delivered his judgment. We think this should not be permitted to re-occur.

The facts briefly are that the first appellant brought a suit in the Circuit Court, Accra, claiming a declaration of title to a piece of land at Taslima-Kotobabi, Accra. The first appellant claimed to have been in possession [p.373] of the land through a grant from the Osu Stool as far back as 1935. Subsequently in 1961, the Osu stool executed a deed of conveyance to confirm the 1935 grant. The first appellant's complaint at the circuit court was that notwithstanding this grant, the respondent trespassed on the land and created a fence across his land and asserted title to a portion of the land.

The respondent in his defence testified that he took his grant from the Ga, Gbese and Korle stools in 1958 by a deed of conveyance executed by the stools in his favour and counterclaimed for a declaration of title to the portion granted him by the stools. The Ga, Gbese and Korle stools as the grantors of the respondent joined as co-defendants in the circuit court and counterclaimed for a declaration of title to:

"all that piece or parcel of land situate lying and being at Kokomlemle, Accra New Town bounded on the north by the Ga, Gbese and Korle stool lands and measuring 60 feet more or less; on the south by the Ga, Gbese and Korle stool lands measuring 60 feet more or less; on the east by Awudu Bukari's property measuring 67 feet more or less; on the west by the Gbese and Korle stools' land measuring 67 feet more or less."

As the first appellant and the respondent took their grants from the Osu stool and the Ga, Gbese and Korle stools respectively, the task of the trial court could h