GLOMICS TOWER SDN BHD v MAJLIS BANDARAYA PETALING JAYA

Case Significance

Reinforces that the three-month limit for judicial review under Order 53 rule 3(6) runs from the operative decision, not from later correspondence or the conclusion of negotiations; leave was refused as time-barred where the challenge to a development-charge direction was filed some twenty months after it issued.

This High Court decision concerns an application by Glomics Tower Sdn Bhd for leave to bring judicial review of a written direction (Arahan Bertulis) issued by Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya (the Petaling Jaya City Council), together with an application to extend time. The direction had imposed development charges exceeding RM3.28 million as a condition for planning permission, and the applicant contended that the charges were imposed contrary to the Streets, Drainage and Building Act 1974, the Town and Country Planning Act 1976 and the Development Charge (Amendment) Rules 2021, failed to account for earlier payments, and were partly ultra vires.

The decisive issue was timing. The Attorney General objected that the application had been filed out of time, contrary to Order 53 rule 3(6) of the Rules of Court 2012, which requires an application for judicial review to be made "promptly and in any event within three months from the date when the grounds of application first arose or when the decision is first communicated to the applicant." The impugned direction was dated 12 December 2023, but the application was not filed until 19 August 2025. The applicant sought to explain the delay by pointing to continuing negotiations, arguing that the direction was not a final decision and that time should run only from the council's final rejection letter of 20 May 2025, and that the council was estopped from raising delay.

The court rejected that argument. It found that the direction, not the later correspondence, was the operative decision, and that the council's letter of 20 May 2025 "is not a decision nor a final rejection." Computed from the operative date, the application was "clearly out of time." On the extension application under Order 53 rule 3(7), which requires "good reason", the court was not persuaded that ongoing negotiations justified the lengthy delay. It therefore allowed the Attorney General's objection and dismissed the application for leave.

The judgment reinforces that the three-month limit for judicial review runs from the operative decision, and that a party cannot indefinitely postpone that starting point by treating subsequent negotiations or correspondence as fresh decisions.