JUDGMENT
The Respondent Co-operative Society purchased an area of 11,330 acres, comprising Land Reference 7612 at Kiu in the Machakos District, in 1971. The previous owners, Mousley and sons Ltd, had permitted a number of person, who have been referred to by the a compendious term “squatters”’ to stay on the land and, it seems from the letter written by one of them, Mr. Samuel Wambuya Kamuya, dated August 26, 1981, that they, or their forbears, had settled on this land in 1933, before Mousley and Sons Ltd became the owners. Prior to the sale to the Respondent there was some scheme to sell the land to the squatters at Kshs 1,000.00 per family, leaving the individual families to demarcate it amongst themselves, but this foundered due to lack of official, presumably land Control Board, consent. Consent was given to the sale to the Respondent by the Masaku Nonyo Sabuk Divisional Land Control Board on June 10, 1970, subject to its agreement to lease 530 acres to eighteen families for the re…