PENGARAH TANAH DAN GALIAN WILAYAH PERSEKUTUAN, KUALA LUMPUR

On the court record

Illustrates how the courts review the exercise of statutory land-administration powers in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and resolve disputes over registered title against the records the land authority maintains.

The Pengarah Tanah dan Galian Wilayah Persekutuan, Kuala Lumpur (the Director of Lands and Mines, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur) appears in this corpus as the land authority for the Federal Territory, almost always as a respondent or defendant in disputes about the administration and registration of land in Kuala Lumpur. A significant strand consists of judicial review under Order 53 of the Rules of Court 2012, in which an applicant seeks an order of certiorari to quash a decision of the land authority — for example a decision affecting the applicant's registered interest — and the court examines whether the decision was made within power and in accordance with the requirements of procedural fairness. Other matters concern private-law disputes over title and dealings, including cases in which the ownership of specified lots and the rights of parties claiming through prior transactions are in issue, and the land authority is joined so that the register may reflect the court's determination. The corpus also engages the interaction between the substantive land dispute and the correct procedural vehicle, including whether a matter should proceed by judicial review or by writ. Because the Director exercises statutory functions over the alienation, registration and administration of land in the Federal Territory, many decisions turn on the scope of those functions and on the correct respondent where several authorities are involved. The matters are decided principally in the High Court, with appeals to the Court of Appeal. Collectively the decisions in which the Director of Lands and Mines for the Federal Territory is a party illustrate how the courts review the exercise of statutory land-administration powers in Kuala Lumpur, quash decisions that fall outside power or breach fairness, and resolve disputes over registered title against the records the land authority maintains. Several of the reported matters also engage the choice between judicial review and an ordinary action as the correct route for a particular complaint, so that the decisions address not only the legality of the land authority's act but also the procedural vehicle by which a challenge to it may properly be brought before the court.