MAJLIS BANDARAYA PETALING JAYA v 1. ) LEMBAGA RAYUAN NEGERI SELANGOR 2. ) FONG LAI CHENG

Case Significance

Illustrates the deference the courts accord to a statutory planning appeal board under the Town and Country Planning Act 1976, and the limited grounds — illegality, unreasonableness or procedural impropriety — on which its decisions may be disturbed by judicial review.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns judicial review brought by a local authority against a decision of the state appeal board in a planning matter. An operator had applied to the local authority for planning permission to establish a childcare centre, or taska, on a residential property. The local authority refused the application. On appeal to the State Appeal Board, that refusal was reversed and the appeal allowed, so that the planning permission the local authority had declined was effectively granted. The local authority then sought judicial review to quash the Appeal Board's decision, contending that the board had erred in the way it reached its conclusion. The central question for the court was whether the Appeal Board had acted correctly in arriving at the impugned decision, tested against the grounds on which an administrative decision may be reviewed under the Town and Country Planning Act 1976 and Order 53 of the Rules of Court 2012. The court examined the decision for illegality, unreasonableness and procedural impropriety, the recognised heads of judicial review, and found none of them made out. The Appeal Board was the body entrusted by the planning legislation with hearing appeals against a local authority's planning decisions, and, absent a reviewable error, it was not for the court to substitute its own view on the planning merits of establishing the childcare centre for that of the specialist appellate body. The court observed that a difference of opinion between the local authority and the Appeal Board on whether the childcare centre should be permitted was not, in itself, a ground of review, since the very function of the appeal mechanism is to allow the board to reach a different conclusion from the authority. Satisfied that there was no illegality, unreasonableness or procedural impropriety that would permit it to intervene, the court dismissed the application for judicial review and ordered the local authority to pay costs of RM5,000 to the operator. The judgment illustrates the deference the courts accord to a statutory planning appeal board and the limited grounds on which its decisions may be disturbed by judicial review.