ADJI & COMPANY V. KUMANIN

ABBAN J.A.

The appeal is from the judgment of the Circuit Court, Koforidua. In the said judgment dated 24 November 1980, the learned circuit judge dismissed the claim of the appellants (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiffs). The plaintiffs had sued the defendant-respondent (hereinafter referred to as the defendant) for damages for trespass and perpetual injunction restraining the defendant, his assigns and privies from interfering with a piece of land, with cocoa and foodstuff farms thereon, lying at Kwaboadi No. 1, near Otwereso in the Eastern Region. The defendant also counterclaimed for a declaration of title and recovery of possession.

It was an undisputed fact that the land in dispute was a portion of the stool land of Otwereso, a sub-stool of the Akyem Abuakwa paramount stool. In 1951 the plaintiffs, a syndicate of farmers and strangers to both stools, obtained the disputed land from the Otwereso stool for farming purposes. The occupant of the Otwereso stool at that time was …