Under Roman-Dutch law, the doctrine of "feeding the estoppel" ensures that if a grantor conveys land they do not own but later acquire title to it, the benefit automatically accrues to the earlier grantee. Statutory requirements for referencing previous land registrations are mandatory for validity.

Lord Moulton :-

In this case the appellant who was plaintiff in the action brought an action of ejectment against the defendant in respect of certain lands described in a grant by the Crown to one Thomas Carry, dated 22nd February 1912, and registered in the Land Registry of the district in folio F. 120/125. The lands are therein described as in the village of Ihalamedagoda. The date of the registration is 16th October, 1914. This grant is the foundation of the title of the appellant; but it is not necessary to set forth the various steps by which the appellant traces his title from the said Crown grant as no objection is raised to them.

The respondent's case is that the lands in question were conveyed by the said Thomas Carry to his predecessors-in-title by a deed dated 11th December, 1909, registered on 15th December, 1909 in folio F. 81/366, As that date was prior to the date of the registration of the Crown grant to Thomas Carry the respondent contends that the latter was improperly registered by being placed in a different folio, and that, further, the said Thomas Carry was incapable of giving a title to the lands in question to any one other than the respondent's predecessors-in-title in-as-much as the title acquired by the said Thomas Carry under the Crown grant went automatically by operation of law to complete the title purporting to have been granted by the said Thomas Carry by the transfer of 11th December, 1909 above referred to.

The relevant facts are as follows. Prior to the events referred to above, Thomas Carry had obtained a Crown grant of a parcel of the lands in question and purported to purchase other parcels of them from various native occupiers. He formed an estate, which he termed the Medagoda estate out of these various parcels and it was that estate which by the deed of 11th December, 1909, he purported to convey to the respondent's predecessors-in-title. The various conveyances from the native occupiers were duly registered but it is not necessary to refer to them, more particularly as it is admitted that the occupiers had no further title than was given to them by their being in possession of the lands and that the real title was in the Crown. Thomas Carry therefore in conveying the lands in question to the predecessors in-title of the respondent by the deed of 11th December, 1909 was conveying that to which he himself had no valid title, but he obtained from the Crown a grant of the lands in question on 22nd February 1912.

Both the Courts below have found that the lands in question were covered by the conveyance from Thomas Carry to the respondent's predecessor-in-title, which (as has already been stated) was dated 11th December 1909 and registered on 15th December 1909 in folio F. 81/366 and their Lordships see no reason to doubt the correctness of this conclusion apart from the fact that there are two concurrent findings of fact to this effect in the judgments in the Courts below.

It is clear, therefore, that the registration of the Crown grant should have been in the same folio as the registration of the conveyance of 11th December 1909. In any case under S. 24 of the Land Registration Ordinance, 1891 (No. 14 of 1891) the later registration must state the volume and folio of the register in which such property has been previously registered. The language of the section makes this imperative, and it is obvious that observance of this provision is vital to the effectiveness of a system of registration. In the present case Thomas Carry, who held the Government grant, and must have been party to the registration, was fully aware of the earlier conveyance, and the infringement of the regulation in S. 24 must have been intentional on his part. Their Lordships are not prepared to hold that the registration of the Crown grant was, under these circumstances valid or that it had any effect at law.

But it is not necessary to discuss the effect of this upon the appellant's title because their Lordships are of opi