Rightbase Trading Sdn. Bhd v Premium Park Development Sdn Bhd

Case Significance

Shows that a first-instance finding of trespass over land undergoing compulsory acquisition can be set aside on appeal where possession is governed by a consent order, and that appellate courts will not bind non-party land authorities.

This Court of Appeal decision is the tenant's appeal in a pair of cross-appeals heard together at Putrajaya, both arising from a single dispute over two plots of land at Muar, Johor, that were being compulsorily acquired by the State Authority even as they remained the subject of a tenancy. The proprietor, Premium Park Development Sdn Bhd, had sued its tenant, Rightbase Trading Sdn Bhd, in the High Court at Muar for unpaid rent and, alternatively, for trespass over a demarcated access road and an unidentified three-acre portion of the land (the Rented Lots). The learned Judicial Commissioner (Pesuruhjaya Kehakiman) partly allowed the claim, in particular allowing the alternative trespass claim in respect of the access road for the interim period between the commencement of acquisition and the vesting of that road in the State Authority. Appeal 373 was the tenant's appeal against that finding of interim trespass over the access road. The panel of S. Nantha Balan, Azimah binti Omar and Ahmad Kamal bin Md Shahid JJCA accepted that, but for the operation of a consent order, the tenant would indeed have been in trespass; but it held, on a balance of probabilities, that there was merit in the tenant's appeal. The court found merit in Appeal 373 and allowed it, setting aside the Judicial Commissioner's decision that had allowed the proprietor's alternative claim for trespass of the access road. Because neither the Land Office nor the State Authority was a party, the court declined to make consequential orders about the incomplete acquisition, instead directing the parties to engage the Land Office so the acquired lands could finally vest under sections 23 and 66 of the Land Acquisition Act 1960. Each party was ordered to bear its own costs. The judgment is a useful example of how a trespass finding can be displaced where possession is governed by a consent order and the land is passing to the State.