Jabatan Ketua Pengarah Tanah & Galian

On the court record

A lands-and-mines authority litigating rectification of the register under section 417 of the National Land Code, the validity of a surrender of land, and compensation on compulsory acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act 1960.

Jabatan Ketua Pengarah Tanah & Galian (the Department of the Director General of Lands and Mines) is a land authority, and it appears in the corpus as a respondent in disputes over the correction of the land register, the validity of a surrender of land, and compensation for compulsory acquisition, argued under the National Land Code and land-acquisition legislation in both English and Malay.

Rectification of the register is one theme. In one matter the court considered an application to cancel a distribution order issued under the small-estates regime, where the plaintiff relied on a subsequent Syariah Court faraid (Islamic inheritance) order, raising whether the High Court may direct the cancellation of a Borang E distribution order under section 417 of the National Land Code, and how the Torrens system accommodates such a correction. A related dispute concerned the validity of a surrender of land — whether a surrender registered after acquisition proceedings had commenced was valid, where the proprietor had voluntarily applied for surrender years earlier, and whether the delay in registration amounted to bad faith or involved procedural non-compliance under section 198(4) of the National Land Code.

Compensation for compulsory acquisition is the other theme. In a Malay-language land reference under the Land Acquisition Act 1960, the dispute was over compensation awarded by the Land Administrator said to be too low, the applicant bearing the responsibility of producing a valuation report to establish a prima facie case for an increase based on market value, and the court allowing an increase. A further matter engaged Article 13 of the Federal Constitution, the National Land Code, the Small Estates (Distribution) Act 1955 and section 340 indefeasibility, in an application to set aside a grant of letters of administration and for declaratory relief. The Department's footprint is that of a land authority whose register, surrenders and acquisition awards are routinely examined and, where necessary, corrected by the courts.