ASIAN SHIELD WAREHOUSING SDN BHD v 1. ) Pejabat Tanah dan Galian Negeri 2. ) Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor (PKNS)

Case Significance

Illustrates the statutory protection section 22 of the National Land Code affords a registry officer acting in good faith without fraud, and the requirement that a challenge to a land registrar's administrative decision be brought by judicial review against the correct party rather than by an originating summons misdescribing the parties and the relief.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns a challenge to the removal of a private caveat and the proper way to sue a land registry. The plaintiff company applied by originating summons complaining of the wrongful removal of a private caveat (pemotongan kaveat secara salah) over a parcel of land in the Klang district, and of the Land Office's refusal to register a second caveat, invoking provisions of the National Land Code. The court identified two fundamental obstacles to the claim. First, the first defendant — the Selangor Land and Mines Office — had, in cancelling the caveat and declining to register a fresh one, been performing its administrative functions, and in the absence of any proof of fraud its actions were protected under section 22 of the National Land Code, which shields registry officers from liability for acts done in good faith in the performance of their duties. Second, the court held that the proper procedure for the plaintiff to challenge the Land Office's administrative decision was by way of judicial review against the first defendant alone; the relief the plaintiff sought by originating summons in truth challenged the exercise of that administrative responsibility, and the second defendant had been wrongly joined. On those grounds the court dismissed the application, ordering costs of RM5,000 to each defendant. Delivered by Noor Hayati binti Haji Mat J, the judgment is a useful illustration of two related principles: the statutory protection that section 22 of the National Land Code affords a registry officer acting in good faith without fraud, and the requirement that a challenge to a land registrar's administrative decision be brought by judicial review against the correct party rather than by an originating summons that misdescribes the parties and the true nature of the relief. The decision shows how the choice of the wrong procedural vehicle, combined with the joinder of the wrong party and the statutory immunity of the registry, can be fatal to a caveat challenge regardless of the underlying merits of the caveator's asserted interest in the land.