MOHD AZMAN BIN YAACOB v TENAGA NASIONAL BERHAD

Case Significance

Illustrates that a validly obtained wayleave under the Electricity Act 1949 (now the Electricity Supply Act 1990) defeats a trespass claim over existing transmission infrastructure, and that the section 14 requisition route is the proper avenue for a landowner seeking removal or alteration of the lines.

This Court of Appeal decision concerns a trespass claim by a landowner against the national electricity utility over transmission towers and lines that crossed his land, and the validity of the utility's wayleave. The appellant was a subsequent landowner who sued the respondent utility in trespass in respect of electrical transmission towers and transmission lines that had been erected across the subject land before he acquired it. Because the appellant is a natural person named only as a party, this analysis refers to that party by role, while the utility is named. The central question was whether the utility had complied with the requisites and statutory procedures needed to obtain and maintain a wayleave over the land.

The court analysed the applicable statutory framework: section 53 of the Electricity Act 1949, the provision under which the transmission structures' wayleave was obtained, now succeeded by section 11 of the Electricity Supply Act 1990. On the evidence, the court was satisfied that the utility had complied with the statutory requisites under the 1949 Act to obtain and maintain its wayleave over the appellant's subdivided lot, so that the presence of the towers and lines was authorised rather than tortious.

The court went further, in an observation of practical importance, to indicate the more appropriate course for a landowner in the appellant's position. Rather than impugning the validity of the wayleave and alleging that the utility had improperly obtained it under the 1949 Act, the landowner should have applied for the remedy of requisition for the removal or alteration of supply lines under section 14 of the Electricity Supply Act 1990. That provision, while offering no guarantee that the structures would ultimately be removed or altered, supplies the appropriate rules and specific procedures — under its subsections (2) to (4) — for determining the propriety of such an application. The judgment is a useful illustration of the effect of a validly obtained wayleave as a defence to a trespass claim over existing transmission infrastructure, and of the statutory requisition route as the proper avenue for a landowner seeking removal or alteration of the lines.