Sime Darby Plantation (Peninsular) Sdn. Bhd. v Pentadbir Tanah Kuala Langat

Case Significance

Illustrates the procedural discipline governing valuation evidence in land-reference proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act 1960, and the refusal to permit a fresh valuation report to be used as a device to reopen compensation claims already finally rejected.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam, delivered by Shahnaz binti Sulaiman J, is one of a set of land references heard together under the Akta Pengambilan Tanah 1960 (the Land Acquisition Act 1960), arising from the compulsory acquisition of the applicant company's land for a 500kV transmission-line project in the Kuala Langat district. Having taken the compensation awarded by the Land Administrator to the High Court by reference under section 38(5) of the Act, the applicant sought to place before the Court a new and different Private Valuation Report — the "Iskandar Report" — and the discrete question for decision was whether that report could be admitted at the land-reference stage.

The Court scrutinised what the proposed report would achieve. It found that the report advanced additional heads of compensation — including environmental-impact-assessment costs — that would materially inflate the total claim, and that those very heads had earlier been rejected when the applicant applied to amend its Borang N (Form N). Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal had already ruled against the applicant on that amendment. To admit the new valuation report at this stage would, in substance, allow the applicant to resurrect those rejected claims by the back door, without any proper amendment application and in disregard of the earlier rulings.

Emphasising that the applicant had offered no reason to justify the need for a fresh valuation report, the Court held that the report was an attempt to circumvent the earlier decisions and that the application to file it had to fail. It dismissed the application to adduce the new Private Valuation Report, with costs of RM1,000 to the Land Administrator. The judgment is a useful illustration of the procedural discipline governing valuation evidence in land-reference proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act 1960, and of the refusal to permit a fresh valuation report to be used as a device to reopen compensation claims already finally rejected.