APPOLO CINEMAS ESTATES (GH) LTD vs. CHIEF REGISTRAR OF LANDS AND OTHERS

The plaintiff company claimed ownership of a disputed parcel of land and a building thereon, described in its earlier suit against the third defendant, Yaw Boakye. It alleged that Habiba Captan, later joined as second defendant, had forcibly occupied the property and that on or about 26 November 1999 the third defendant, acting without the plaintiff’s authority, demolished house No. F 572/1 on the land. The plaintiff further alleged that although it already held a registered land certificate, the second defendant fraudulently procured a second land certificate over the same land through false representations to the Chief Registrar of Lands, thereby creating double registration. This factual basis appears in the opening part of the judgment where the court recounts the plaintiff’s pleadings and states that “the second defendant made a fraudulent representation to the Chief Registrar of Lands that she was the owner of the land at a time there did already exist a registered title with a certificate in the name of the plaintiff in the land register.”

JUDGEMENT Appau J. In 1999, precisely on 14 December 1999, the plaintiff, Appolo Cinemas and Estates (Gh) Ltd, in a suit No 600/99 sued the defendant (Yaw Boakye) hereinafter referred to as the third defendant, in this consolidated suit claiming five reliefs, namely: (a) recovery of possession of the disputed land as described on the writ of summons; (b) special damages for wrongful and illegal destruction of house No F 572/1; (c) an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant, etc from entering the said land and carrying on any work or building operations thereon; (d) declaration of title to the said plot of land and the demolished building thereon; and (e) general damages for trespass and destruction of the said land and building thereon. The statement of claim accompanying this writ is very brief. It contains only six paragraphs and the sum total of the plaintiff’s case as pleaded is that it is the legal and beneficial owner of a piece of land with a building .....