PENDAFTAR HAKMILIK WILAYAH PERSEKUTUAN, KUALA LUMPUR

On the court record

A Federal Territory title registrar embroiled in enforcement of a 2009 land declaration against the Government, testing mandamus, the section 29 Government Proceedings Act bar, and statutory-duty liability under section 378 of the National Land Code.

Pendaftar Hakmilik Wilayah Persekutuan, Kuala Lumpur (the Registrar of Titles for the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur) appears in the corpus as a land-registration authority caught up in long-running disputes over the ownership and transfer of land in the capital, frequently as a respondent or defendant. A dominant thread is the enforcement of a 2009 High Court declaration concerning a large parcel in the Duta enclave.

Across several matters the courts grappled with whether the Government could be compelled to transfer the subject land — of the order of 263 acres — to a private estate on the strength of that 2009 declaration. The central questions were whether mandamus lay against the Government, and whether section 29(1)(b) of the Government Proceedings Act 1956 barred orders for the recovery of land against it. Related proceedings sought a stay of execution of an order directing the implementation of the 2009 judgment, and the enforcement of a consent order against the administrator of a deceased proprietor's estate through an originating summons.

The Registrar's statutory duties have themselves been litigated. One matter raised whether the Registrar was liable in the tort of breach of statutory duty under section 378 of the National Land Code for failing to take reasonable care to insert the correct identity-card number of a deceased registered proprietor in the register. Other proceedings were more conventionally procedural: a striking-out where an earlier civil suit tried to a conclusion and upheld on appeal gave rise to res judicata, the court treating the fresh claim against opposing solicitors as obviously unsustainable; and an application in Malay under Aturan 19 Kaedah 7 Kaedah-kaedah Mahkamah 2012 (Order 19 rule 7 of the Rules of Court 2012) arising from a default in filing a defence to the writ and statement of claim. Running through the cluster is a single unresolved grievance — the transfer of the Duta-enclave land — repeatedly returning to court in fresh procedural guises, so that the Registrar's role as custodian of the register is bound up with the wider question of whether and how a declaratory judgment against the Government can be enforced.