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CaseLaw

Anakwenze Vs. Aneke (1985) CLR 6(a) (SC)

Judgement delivered on June 7th 1985

Brief

  • Power of appellate court to enforce orders
  • Enforcement of judgement

Facts

By a public notice pub¬lished on 25th January, 1973, In East Central State Gazette No. 4 Volume 4, the former East Central State of Nigeria acquired, for public use, a parcel of land at Emene. Sometime later the sum of N658,000.00 as compensation payable to the owners of the land acquired was paid into the High Court at Enugu by the govern¬ment of Anambra State.

On 7th June, 1978 the appellant took out a summons under the Public Lands Acquisition Law, Cap. 105 Laws of Eastern Nigeria, 1963 on behalf of his clients, namely (1) Joseph Ede (2) Bernard Mba, (3) Vincent Aluma and (4) Geoffrey Nneji who were suing as plaintiffs on behalf of the people of Amaechi Village of Emene Nike. The summons sought for the payment of the com¬pensation paid into the High Court to the appellant's clients. Meanwhile, pending the determination of the issues raised by the summons, the plaintiffs applied to the High Court (Araka, C.J.) for the release of half of the compensation paid into court, it was said, to alleviate their sufferings as a result of the acquisition. That application was granted.

After one-third of the compensation was paid to the appellant personally, who was acting on behalf of the plaintiffs, two other communities namely of Emene and Umuchigbo Iji-Nike applied to the High Court to be joined in the action as inter¬ested parties and also asked for the discharge of the order of payment of one-third of the compensation to the plaintiffs. The latter part of the application was based on the ground that the land acquired by the government belonged, In com¬mon, to all the three communities of Ameachi, Emene and Umuchigbo Iji Nike, and that by virtue of the provisions of sections 15 and 18 of the Public Lands Acquisi¬tion (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1976 (1976 No. 33) it was the land tribunal es¬tablished under the Act that had Jurisdiction in the matter. The original jurisdiction of the High Court having been ousted by section 18 of the Act.

The learned Chief Judge upheld the submission that he had no jurisdiction in the matter and struck out the suit; but refused to discharge the order of payment of one-third of the compensation to the plaintiffs.

Aggrieved by the ruling, both the people of Amaechi and the community of Emene separately appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal (now simply Court of Appeal). The court determined both appeals as follows:

"In the final analysis the appeal by the Amaechi village fails and it is dismissed. The appeal by the Emene Community succeeds and the following orders are made:

  • 1
    That the order of the learned Chief Judge striking out suit No. 13/159/78 stands.
  • 2
    That the amount of compensation wrongly paid out by the order of court dated 12th June, 1978 to the Amaechi village represented by Joseph Ede, Bernard Mba, Vincent Akuma and Geoffrey Nneji being one-third of the compensation of N658, 000 paid into the High Court Enugu be recovered from the persons aforesaid by the registrar High Court Enugu and that the amount so refunded be paid into the government treasury Enugu within 30 days to abide the decision of the land tribunal."

    • Now these orders were made on the 29th day of May, 1980. The appellant ac¬ting on behalf of his clients filed an application in the Court of Appeal on 27th June, 1980 to stay execution of the order to refund part of the compensation paid out to him for his clients of the false information that there was a pending application for leave to appeal to this court. On Investigation it was in fact found that no such ap¬plication had been made. Consequently, the appellant withdrew the application for stay of execution on 23rd September, 1980.

    By the 2nd April, 1981 the money had not been refunded as ordered by the Court of Appeal. The registrar of High Court, Enugu wrote a reminder to the ap¬pellant, whose reply was that it was not his responsibility to recover the money, paid out to his clients. Up to 30th November, 1981 no steps had been taken by the people of Amaechi village to comply with the order. Emene community therefore applied on that day to the Court of Appeal to commit to prison the four repre¬sentatives of Amaechi village including their counsel the appellant.

Issues

  • 1
    Whether the Court of Appeal is competent to execute its own judgment and...
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