David Ng Yew Kiat

On the court record

David Ng Yew Kiat appears in the reported corpus as land and utilities counsel, with land acquisition, compensation and electricity wayleave disputes recurring across the High Court and Court of Appeal. Several matters concern the compulsory acquisition of land and the compensation payable: in one the court considered whether the amount of compensation awarded was appealable where no question of law arose and whether the market value fixed by the authority was reasonable, and in a matter argued on a judgment in Bahasa Malaysia the question was sama ada tarikh pengambilan tanah adalah pada masa tanah berkenaan diwartakan di bawah seksyen 4 atau seksyen 8 Akta Pengambilan Tanah 1960 (whether the date of acquisition is when the land is gazetted under section 4 or under section 8 of the Land Acquisition Act 1960), which governs the valuation date.

His utilities practice is closely tied to the electricity supply framework. He was engaged in a matter on compliance with the requisites and statutory procedures under section 53 of the Electricity Act 1949 — now section 11 of the Electricity Supply Act 1990 — for obtaining and maintaining a wayleave, and in a further matter on late-payment interest under the Electricity Supply Act 1990 for delayed wayleave compensation and the landowner's right to adequate compensation under Article 13(2) of the Federal Constitution. His land work also includes a trespass dispute testing whether occupation pursuant to the consent of a previous registered proprietor — a substation erected before purchase — amounted to trespass under the Torrens system and the doctrine of indefeasibility, and a land-reference intervention concerning Tenaga Nasional Berhad as paymaster and whether it was a "person interested" under section 37 of the Land Acquisition Act 1960. The reported matters mark him as counsel in land, acquisition-compensation and electricity-wayleave litigation. Across these reported decisions he is most often instructed for the acquiring authority or the utility, and the matters together map the recurring flashpoints of infrastructure litigation — the valuation date, the adequacy of compensation, the wayleave and the constitutional guarantee of adequate compensation for the taking of property.