Daudi Myoya v. Lukas John (PC) Civ. App. 6-A-71; 30/10/71; Mwikima Ag. J.

Daudi Myoya v. Lukas John (PC) Civ. App. 6-A-71; 30/10/71; Mwikima Ag. J.

The defendant sold 18 acres of land to the plaintiff for Shs. 3,000/= which the latter paid in the presence of two elders at the primary court. The court found that the plaintiff did not occupy the land immediately or if he sought to do so, he met thereon a third party who had paid the defendant Shs. 16,577/= for the land. It was also established that prior to the sale of the same plot of land to the plaintiff the defendant had sold it to a number of other buyers …………. The plaintiff successfully claimed possession of the land in the Primary Court. The decision was reversed in the District Court.

Held: (1) “It is quite evident that the land was occupied by someone else at the time when the appellant bought it. In other words the respondent was defrauding him. The person occupying at the time of the sale cannot now be disturbed in order to accommodate the appellant.” (2) “Furthermore there is the widely recognized practice of having all land sales in Arusha authorised by the Arusha Meru District Council. So that the occupying party who entered the land first and also received the blessings of the Arusha Meru District Council appears to be in an unimpregnable postion vis a vis the appellant in which case there a can be neither justice nor reason in ordering the lawful occupier to set aside a piece of his land to the appellant.” (3) “The only thin to do to assist the appellant who has been the victim of a wicked if naïve fraud is to order that the respondent refund the Shs. 3,000/= cunningly and fraudulently received from the appellant. In that connection therefore the respondent is hereby ordered to refund Shs. 3,000/= to the appellant with full costs of this case in all the three courts. This will help to restore the parties to their original position before the fraud was perpetrated.”