CATURAN DINAMIK SDN BHD v Pentadbir Tanah Daerah Petaling

Case Significance

Illustrates the limits on adding fresh grounds of objection to a compensation award in a land reference under the Land Acquisition Act 1960, the court refusing leave to amend a Form N where the applicant's reasons for the omission were insufficient in the face of an inordinate delay.

This High Court decision concerns an application in a land-reference proceeding to amend a Form N so as to add new grounds of objection to a compensation award under the Land Acquisition Act 1960. The applicant was the registered owner of land in the district of Petaling, part of which had been acquired by the Land Administrator for a water-scheme project; the applicant had received the compensation awarded in the Form H with objection, filed its Form N, and had the objection referred to the court. After the reference had progressed through multiple case-management dates, exchanges of valuers' reports and rebuttals, and the filing of submissions, the applicant applied to amend its Form N to add fresh grounds — that the award had failed to compensate for injurious affection to the remaining land after the acquisition and for the loss of profit it would suffer because construction works had already begun. The court restated the applicable principles: it has a discretionary power to grant leave to raise additional grounds of objection, but the applicant bears the burden of providing sufficient reasons, supported by affidavit, for not having included those grounds earlier, and where sufficient reasons are shown leave ought to be granted. Examining the reasons offered — that the omission was a professional oversight by the applicant's former valuer and that it had acted promptly on fresh advice — the court found them insufficient in light of the inordinate delay, there having been a lapse of more than two years since the objection and more than a year since it had come to the High Court, which had disrupted the timely disposal of the reference. The court accordingly declined to exercise its discretion in the applicant's favour and disallowed the amendment. The judgment illustrates the limits on adding fresh grounds of objection in a land reference.