McDan Group of Companies CEO, Daniel McKorley, has been found guilty of contempt by the Accra High Court over a disputed parcel of land at East Legon.
The court imposed a fine of GHc40,000 on him, with GHc15,000 to be given to the applicant in the matter.
The applicant, Al-Hassan Iddisah, had accused McKorley of deliberately disrespecting an order of the High Court and forcibly taking over land in dispute.
The court held that McKorley had disobeyed the orders of the High Court and brought the administration of justice into disrepute.
The background of the case is that Al-Hassan Iddisah’s late wife and mother own two contiguous plots of land at East Legon, Accra.
They have been in possession of the land since 2002 until Daniel McKorley forcibly took over from them.
Despite knowing the interest of Iddisah’s family, McKorley invoked the jurisdiction of the District Court, Madina, by an ex-parte motion to have possession of the lands, which was granted.
Iddisah then filed an application for certiorari to quash the order of the Madina District Court, which was granted by the High Court on June 9, 2020.
Despite the ruling of the court, McKorley remained in possession of the land and continued to develop it, prompting Iddisah to file a contempt application to vindicate the law and its sanctions.
Iddisah complied with the order made by the Court and posted copies of the order and penal notice at all the places ordered to be posted.
He also published a copy in the Ghanaian Times Newspaper.
Despite this, McKorley continued to build on the land, in disregard of the order of the court.
Iddisah tendered in photographs embossed with dates showing workers alleged to be on the land after the service of the order of the Court, and contended that McKorley’s continuation of the construction “is a contumacious disrespect of the orders of the Court and constitute contempt of Court which must be punished”.
Iddisah prayed the court to convict McKorley and punish him since he has no excuse to say he was not aware of the order because his lawyer was in court when the order was made.
In a 16-paragraph affidavit in opposition against the application, McKorley argues that he had not done anything wrong that required him punished.
He claimed to have acquired a parcel of land situated at Mpehuasem from one Yaw Adomako Koduah and had since been issued with a Land Certificate numbered GA53817.
He obtained an order from the Madina Magistrate Court to take possession of the land, which he did.
He then developed the land into apartments to be sold to prospective purchasers, and the order obtained from the Madina Magistrate Court was quashed by the High Court on June 9, 2020.
McKorley claimed that he was not aware of the court’s decision until March 2022, almost two years after the ruling, when his workers saw copies posted on the walls of the McDan Group of Companies building at East Legon.
He had already finished construction of the apartments and even sold them when he became aware of the decision.
McKorley also claimed that Iddisah had issued a fresh writ of summons against him and his grantor at the Land Division of the High Court for declaration of title to the land and served him by substituted service.