BELGORE, JSC (Delivering the Leading Judgment): On 20th day of November, 2000 I dismissed this appeal and upheld the decision of Court of Appeal which ordered a retrial of the matter at the High Court. I now give my reasons. I also dismissed the cross-appeal.
The trial High Court made some positive findings in the case on the evidence before it. The case is more complicated than what the learned counsel for the appellants wanted to make it. The appellants claimed they made a grant of the disputed land to the local community, and there was matching grant by their adjacent land-owning family, for the purpose of a motor park. It later transpired in pleadings and evidence that the Local Government later acquired the garage compulsorily. There was no contest as to compensation but what seemed to irk the appellants is that the respondent community started erecting stores and permanent buildings on the land and had applied for Rights of Occupancy from the acquiring Council/Local Government. …