Kumar Jaspal Quah & Aishah

On the court record

Kumar Jaspal Quah & Aishah appears in the reported judgments as a land-acquisition specialist, working mainly in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) with matters in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), and appearing overwhelmingly as an intervener. The defining feature of its corpus is the land reference under the Land Acquisition Act 1960 (LAA 1960): proceedings in which a landowner dissatisfied with the compensation fixed for land compulsorily acquired asks the High Court to reassess the award, and in which the firm appears for the party whose scheme benefits from the acquisition. The recurring questions include whether the High Court was right to allow an increase in compensation, the operation of sections 38(2) and 38(3) of the LAA 1960 and the meaning of the word "shall" in that context, the effect of Form K (Borang K) and its endorsement, and applications to set aside a High Court order for contravention of section 43. The firm's near-constant appearance as intervener reflects the structure of these disputes, where a highway or development concessionaire whose project requires the land intervenes to resist an increase in the compensation payable. Its corpus also touches the legal profession, including an inquiry by a Disciplinary Committee, and questions of damages. The counterparties and interested parties in the corpus include West Coast Expressway Sdn Bhd and other development and infrastructure companies. Acting predominantly as intervener for the scheme beneficiary, the firm presents as a dedicated land-acquisition and compensation practice, and its corpus is, in effect, a running record of the compensation disputes generated by major highway and infrastructure projects. The recurrence of the same interested party across its matters reflects the way a single large scheme can generate a cluster of separate references, each concerning a different parcel taken for the same road, and each turning on the same statutory questions of valuation and procedure. The firm's role as intervener, rather than as the acquiring authority itself, is the characteristic posture of counsel protecting the concessionaire's financial exposure to the compensation ultimately assessed.