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

Case Significance

Illustrates how the courts guard the integrity of land-reference proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act 1960, refusing to allow a new valuation report to serve as a vehicle for reopening compensation claims already finally determined against the applicant.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam, delivered by Shahnaz binti Sulaiman J, is one of the consolidated land references under the Akta Pengambilan Tanah 1960 (the Land Acquisition Act 1960) brought by a plantation company whose land was compulsorily acquired for a 500kV electricity transmission-line project in the Kuala Langat district. Dissatisfied with the Land Administrator's award, the applicant referred the matter to the High Court under section 38(5) of the Act, and at the reference proceedings sought to introduce a new and different Private Valuation Report, the "Iskandar Report". The precise issue the Court had to decide was whether such a fresh valuation report could be adduced at this stage of the land reference.

Reviewing the report, the Court found that it sought to bring in compensation headings — among them environmental-impact-assessment costs — that would significantly increase the total claim, and that these were the same additional grounds the applicant had earlier tried, and failed, to introduce by amending its Borang N (Form N). The refusal of that amendment had been the subject of rulings by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. To allow the new valuation report now would permit the applicant to reintroduce those already-rejected claims without a proper application and in circumvention of the earlier decisions.

The Court held that the new Private Valuation Report was, in substance, an attempt to circumvent the earlier rulings on the amendment of the Form N, and that, no reason having been offered to justify a fresh valuation, the application to file the report had to fail. It dismissed the application, with costs of RM1,000 to the Land Administrator. The judgment is a useful illustration of how the courts guard the integrity of land-reference proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act 1960, refusing to allow a new valuation report to serve as a vehicle for reopening compensation claims that have already been finally determined against the applicant.