PNSB ACMAR SDN BHD v 1. ) PENGARAH TANAH DAN GALIAN SELANGOR 2. ) Pentadbir Tanah Daerah Klang 3. ) PEGAWAI KEWANGAN NEGERI SELANGOR PENCELAH PRASARANA MALAYSIA BHD

Case Significance

Illustrates that intervention in judicial review will not be permitted merely because a third party has a financial stake in the outcome, where the proceedings turn on a statutory duty owed by the respondent authorities and the applicant's relief lies against them alone.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns an application to intervene in judicial review proceedings arising from a compulsory land acquisition. The applicant, a landowner, had brought judicial review against the state land authorities seeking, among other relief, an order of mandamus compelling them to pay the compensation due on the acquisition of its scheduled land, which had been acquired in connection with a light rail transit project. A company that served as the paymaster for that infrastructure project applied to be joined as an intervener, contending that, as the entity ultimately responsible for funding the compensation, it had a sufficient interest in the proceedings. The court considered whether the proposed intervener ought to be allowed to participate and concluded that it should not. The judicial review was, in substance, a dispute between the applicant landowner and the respondents, who were governmental authorities charged with the statutory functions of acquiring the land and paying compensation under the Land Acquisition Act 1960. The relief sought — an order directing those authorities to pay — lay against them, and the presence of the project's paymaster was not necessary to determine whether that statutory duty had been performed. Allowing the paymaster to intervene would have drawn into the proceedings a party whose commercial funding arrangements were distinct from the public-law question the court had to decide, and would have risked complicating rather than assisting the resolution of the mandamus application. The court accordingly dismissed the application to intervene and ordered the proposed intervener to pay costs of RM3,000 to the applicant. The judgment illustrates that intervention in judicial review will not be permitted merely because a third party has a financial stake in the outcome, where the proceedings turn on the discharge of a statutory duty owed by the respondent authorities and the applicant's relief lies against them alone.