Tana River wins case against family that sold community land
The Tana River County government has won a case against four people involved in selling and buying community land for Sh2 million.
Justice Enock Cherono of the Environment and Land Court in Garissa said the county government had proved its case against Mr Fara Ali, Mr Suleiman Imole, Mr Abdi Bocho and Mr Asman Bacho.
The court ruled that the land is unregistered community property held in trust by the county government on behalf of locals. For that reason, the sale agreement dated March 12, 2018 between Mr Ali and the three other defendants was revoked.
It also issued a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from clearing bushes, dealing in, trespassing, fencing, transferring, disposing of and interfering with the land and any other community land.
Justice Cherono ruled that Mr Imole, Mr Abdi and Mr Asman, who sold the land to Mr Ali, did not have any proprietorship rights over the property.
No documents
“They have not produced any documents showing that the land is a private family land capable of being disposed of under any written law,” he said.
He also said that Section 6 of the Community Land Act provides that the role of the county government is to hold in trust all unregistered community land on behalf of the communities.
“It is clear in my mind that the actions by Mr Imole, Mr (Abdi) Bocho and Mr (Asman) Bocho in purporting to sell the land to Mr Ali were not only illegal and irregular but offend the provisions of the law,” he said.
The county government had argued that other than the defendants’ allegations that the property was family land, they did not produce any title as evidence of private ownership of it.
It also argued that the mere occupation of an unregistered community land exclusively or by a specific family or clan does not grant any community member the right to engage in illegal and irregular dealings over it at the expense of others.
For his part, Mr Ali said that before he bought the land, he conducted due diligence and was told that the property belonged to the families of the three. BY DAILY NATION
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