Muslim community loses court fight for forest land
What you need to know:
- According to court documents, NMC had accused NFA of unlawfully entering the disputed land in 2017 without the authority of the claimant and planted diverse tree species and that they were in the process of erecting structures to defeat their interest.
- The Community had asked the court to declare that NFA acquisition of the disputed land was unlawful and that NFA and its employees are trespassers.
- Through their lawyers, NMC had also sought for a permanent order restraining NFA and its employees trespassing on the disputed land and or interfering with NMC quiet possession and enjoyment of the suit land.
Court has dismissed with costs a case in which a Muslim Community had claimed ownership of a three – hectare piece of land which the National Forestry Authority (NFA) is using to operate a tree nursery at Banda in Nakawa Division, Kampala.
Justice John Eudes Keitirima ruled that the case was filed out of time and that it could not stand under the law.
“It was an agreed fact by parties that the suit land had been gazetted as Banda Nursery Central Forest Reserve in 1948. The defendant (NFA) cannot be a trespasser on land that was allocated to them by statutory instrument and of which they have never been challenged for over 60 years,” Justice Keitirima ruled.
In 2017, Nabisunsa Muhammadan Community (NMC) petitioned the High Court, Land Division accusing NFA and the Attorney General (AG), of trespassing of its land comprised at Plot M42 at Banda on Jinja-Kampala Road near the city center.
The community incorporated in 2013 had sought for aggravated, exemplary and general damages, a permanent injunction and an order of demolition of structures on the disputed land as well as legal costs incurred in prosecuting the case.
But according to NFA, the disputed land known as Banda Nursery Central Forest Reserve was duly declared for purposes of a forest and related uses prescribed by the National Forestry and Tree Planting Act of 2003 and that it was gazetted as Central Forest Reserve in 1948 and later in 1998.
NFA lawyers led by Mr Moses Muhumuza stated that the reserve land measuring about three hectares was earlier managed as a forest reserve by the defunct forest department under the Ministry of Water and Environment until the creation of NFA under the law.
Justice Keitirima held that it was an agreed fact between the parties that the said land forms part and parcel of Banda Nursery Central Forest Reserve which was gazetted in 1948 and later in 1998.
The court observed that upon visiting the land in dispute, the judge established that NFA was in physical possession of the land and that there was no evidence that a mosque was ever erected on the land.
The judge also observed that the parties agreed that NFA has been in occupation of the said land since the 1970s and that the claimant came into existence on August 22, 2013.
“The plaintiff (NMC) could therefore, have not been designated the suit land earlier than that since it was non-existent. In any case, no evidence was adduced to show how the suit land was designated to the plaintiff,” Justice Keitirima ruled.
[email protected]
