1. ) EMY NURROSYDAH BINTI IBRAHIM 2. ) CHE NORSIAH BINTI HASHIM v 1. ) Pentadbir Tanah Negeri Perlis 2. ) NORIZAN BIN HASHIM

Case Significance

Illustrates how indefeasibility of registered title and the timing of registration relative to a private caveat resolve a dispute over a cancelled trust: a validly registered cancellation under section 322 of the National Land Code confers the right to possession, and a later caveat cannot undo it.

This High Court decision at Kangar concerns a challenge to the cancellation of a trust over a share of land and the registration that followed, decided within the framework of the Torrens system. The plaintiffs sued the state Land Administrator and an individual defendant, seeking a declaration that a transaction registered in November 2021 over an undivided share of a parcel of land in Mukim Utan Aji was invalid. Because the individual parties are natural persons named only as litigants, this analysis refers to them by role, while the Land Administrator is identified by office.

The court applied familiar principles of the burden of proof under sections 101 and 102 of the Evidence Act 1950: the burden of proving a fact lies on the party who asserts it and does not shift, and a plaintiff who fails to prove his case on the balance of probabilities must have his claim dismissed. Against that background it examined the validity of the cancellation of the trust and the effect of the private caveat under section 322(4) of the National Land Code, together with the registered proprietor's right to obtain vacant possession. The court found that the instrument cancelling the trust had been accepted and registered before the private caveat took effect, and that the cancellation of the second defendant as trustee was valid and in accordance with section 322 of the National Land Code, so that there was no need for the Land Administrator to reinstate him as trustee.

Having upheld the validity of the cancellation, the court dismissed the plaintiffs' claim and allowed the second defendant's counterclaim, ordering the plaintiffs, the heirs and the occupants to vacate the house and deliver vacant possession to the second defendant as the registered owner. The judgment is a useful illustration of how the indefeasibility of registered title and the timing of registration relative to a private caveat determine the outcome of a dispute over a cancelled trust: a validly registered cancellation confers on the registered proprietor the right to possession, and a caveat lodged only afterwards cannot undo it.