JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
This appeal is from a judgment of the Environment and Land Court in Nyeri given on 16th May 2014 which decided a legal tussle that had lasted more than two decades. It was a dispute over the ownership of Plot No. Karatina Block 1/639 measuring some 0.4 Hactares within Karatina Township (hereafter “the suit property”).
The suit property started out as an unsurveyed piece of land originally meant for a lorry depot for which a Part Development Plan (PDP) was prepared dated 19th May 1971. After approving that PDP the Ministry of Lands and Settlement in Nairobi forwarded the same to the Clerk of the then Nyeri County Council vide a letter dated 30th August 1971. In that letter, one Erica Mann, writing on behalf of the Town Planning Adviser advised, “that the plot be properly fenced along its road frontage since lorry depots are not exactly beautiful”.
Subsequent events were not exactly beautiful.
By a letter of allotment dated 21st October 1971, one Joseph K Mugambi (Muga…