TALLY DEVELOPMENT (M) SDN BHD v 1. ) Pentadbir Tanah Daerah Gombak 2. ) Pejabat Daerah dan Tanah 3. ) Pejabat Tanah dan Galian Negeri 4. ) Kerajaan Negeri Selangor

Case Significance

Holds that an approval to vary land-use conditions under section 124 of the National Land Code that has not been endorsed on the document of title is incomplete and does not devolve upon a successor in title, so a refusal to give effect to it is not reviewable.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns an application for judicial review challenging a Land Administrator's refusal to vary the land use and amend the express conditions (syarat nyata) on the titles to two lots, where a premium had earlier been paid in connection with an approval granted to a previous applicant. The applicant company sought declaratory, certiorari, and mandamus relief to compel the variation from an agricultural to a residential-building category, relying on the earlier approval and the premium paid, and on section 124 of the National Land Code, which governs applications to vary conditions and restrictions on a title.

The court examined the history of the approval. The approval to vary the conditions had been granted in the name of a different, earlier applicant, and the relevant State authority had decided, at meetings of the State Executive Council, that applications to substitute the name of the successful applicant in the approval would not be accepted. As a consequence, the approval issued in the earlier applicant's name was revoked and withdrawn, on the footing that a change to the proprietorship of the land would have had the serious consequence of the approval being revoked.

The court found that the present applicant had made no application to substitute itself for the person named in the approval, and, decisively, that because the variation had never been endorsed on the document of title, the variation had not been completed. An approval to vary conditions that has not been carried through to endorsement on the title cannot devolve upon a successor in title. On that basis the Land Administrator's refusal disclosed no reviewable error, and the court dismissed the application for judicial review with no order as to costs. The judgment illustrates that an incomplete, unendorsed approval to vary land-use conditions under section 124 of the National Land Code does not pass to a successor in title.