The Court of Appeal has affirmed a High Court ruling that the Petaling land office had unlawfully forfeited a plot of land from a property developer.
Justice Azimah Omar, who led a three-member bench, said the land office failed to compensate SEA Housing Corporation Sdn Bhd for the acquisition of the 2,043.8 sq m plot of land in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, and that it had withheld evidence.
Justices Nazlan Ghazali and Faizah Jamaludin also sat on the panel.
In dismissing the land office’s appeal, the court ordered the developer to be paid RM35,000 in costs.
On April 11, 2023, High Court judge K Muniandy held that the forfeiture of the land was unlawful.
Muniandy also said the land office’s conduct amounted to denying the developer’s constitutional right to property.
SEA Housing Corporation had in 2016 discovered that it was the registered proprietor of Lot 8914 when there was a demand for outstanding arrears to be settled.
The company then sought clarification from the land office and the matter was referred to the land office’s technical division.
Upon examination of the drawings of Lot 8914, SEA Housing Corporation was informed that the said lot did not exist as it had overlapped with an adjacent lot. This was supported by a report signed by an officer in the land office.
However, sometime in August 2018, SEA Housing Corporation discovered that Lot 8914 did not overlap with the adjacent lot and was in fact a separate plot of land by itself.
It also discovered that the state authority, through the land office, had forfeited Lot 8914 as a result of the developer’s purported failure to pay the quit rent arrears.
In December 2018, the developer submitted a petition under the National Land Code to annul the forfeiture of Lot 8914.
However, the land office failed to undertake its statutory duties to hear the petition on grounds that it was filed out of time, resulting in a suit being filed in the High Court.
The High Court allowed the appeal and ordered the petition to be reheard by the land office.
The land office, however, informed the developer’s lawyers that the petition had been dismissed and Lot 8914 would be made a public road and reserved for public purposes.
SEA Housing Corporation filed a suit in February 2022 seeking various declaratory reliefs and consequential orders arising from the unlawful forfeiture.
Assistant state legal advisers Khairuddin Idris and Siti Radziah Kamarudin represented the land office while lawyers Lim Kien Huat and Bryan Ching appeared for the developer.
