Oichoe v Land Registrar & another (Environment and Land Petition 10 of 2021) [2022] KEELC 3499 (KLR)

The court found that the title the Applicant claimed was administratively cancelled in 2010, five years before the title was allegedly issued to him, and that the mother title had been transferred to Pius Nyakwanga Nyamatura and subdivided into parcels 5255-5267 held by third parties. The Applicant did not rebut the Registrar's averments by Further Affidavit, and a discrepancy in the issue dates of the title deed and search certificate was unexplained. New claims about a 1990 court order and an innocent purchase were raised only in submissions, which are not pleadings.

Since it was common ground that the Applicant's title deed had been revoked by the 1st Respondent, the court held it would be impossible to restrain the Registrar from altering an already revoked title. Granting the orders would effectively reinstate the revoked title at an interlocutory stage and nullify titles of third parties who had not been joined to the suit and who have a right to be heard.

The court accepted the Respondent's submission that the Land Registration Act provides three avenues - a caution under section 71, a restriction under section 76, and an inhibition under section 68 - which the Applicant ought to have exhausted before filing the application for injunction. Failure to exhaust these avenues meant the court was not the appropriate forum to entertain the application as framed.

The court cited section 16(2) of the Government Proceedings Act and prior decisions holding that no injunction can issue against the Attorney General or Government officers. Since the 1st Respondent is a Government officer, the injunctive relief sought was untenable in law irrespective of the merits.