Semantan Estate’s stay application fixed for hearing on Aug 29 at apex court

• Semantan Estate, which has gone under voluntary liquidation, is seeking a stay of the appellate court’s June 24 decision, which specified that the High Court is to assess the compensation to be paid by the government over the illegal acquisition of land, based on the 1956 market rate with 6% annual interest until payment.

PUTRAJAYA (Aug 13): The Federal Court has fixed Aug 29 to hear Semantan Estate (1952) Sdn Bhd’s stay application on the Court of Appeal’s decision in June that had ordered for the case to be sent back to the High Court for valuation of compensation of the 1956 “trespass” acquisition of the prime land in Kuala Lumpur.

The date was fixed on Tuesday (Aug 12) following case management before Federal Court deputy registrar Husna Dzulkifly.

The date was confirmed by Semantan Estate lawyer Janet Chai Pei Ying when contacted by The Edge.

Semantan Estate, which has gone under voluntary liquidation, is seeking a stay of the appellate court’s June 24 decision, which specified that the High Court is to assess the compensation to be paid by the government over the illegal acquisition of land, based on the 1956 market rate with 6% annual interest until payment.

The Court of Appeal (COA) had directed both the government and the company’s valuation experts to evaluate the 263.272-acre land within 30 days of the June 24 decision.

The company had already been compensated RM1.32 million in 1956 for the acquisition, but that has now been deemed insufficient following the trespass ruling.

Besides this, the company has also filed 26 questions of law to seek leave (permission) from the Federal Court in its appeal over the Court of Appeal’s decision, which had allowed the government’s appeal to not have to register the land title back to the company as had previously been directed by the High Court.

The notice of motion includes an affidavit in support by the company's liquidator Dr Jim Lai Chee Chuen, who said that the questions fulfil the requirement under Section 96 (b) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 as they affect Article 13 of the Federal Constitution concerning rights to property and the validity of two pre-Merdeka laws, namely Section 29(1)(b) Government Proceedings Act 1956 and Section 8 Specific Relief Act 1950 (SRA).

Lai also claimed that the appellate court had made an error in law in its decision last month, which if uncorrected, would stand as an erroneous precedent and violate the sanctity of the apex court's decisions.

In the appellate court decision, then-COA judge Datuk Lee Swee Seng (now a Federal Court judge) had ruled to dismiss Semantan Estate’s appeal to physically recover the land and its building.

Lee had sat with then-COA judge Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh (now the newly-appointed Chief Justice), who wrote a supporting judgment to Lee’s decision, where Wan Ahmad Farid had noted that the 2009 High Court decision by then-judicial commissioner (JC) Zura Yahya, that had ruled that the government had trespassed on the land, had not made any order for the impugned land to be transferred back to Semantan Estate.

“There is no evidence before this court that Semantan Estate had sought clarification from the learned JC as to whether the impugned land ought to be transferred and registered by the Federal Land Commissioner [back] to Semantan Estate as a consequential order.

“In short, there was no attempt made to ‘work out’ the order so as to give effect to the initial order. It is to be recalled that the ‘liberty to apply’ rule for consequential order is implied in every court order. Semantan Estate did not exercise this right at the material time,” Wan Ahmad Farid had added.

The 263.272-acre land was acquired in 1956, and after a long-standing legal battle, Zura’s decision in 2009 found that the government had trespassed. This was upheld by the Court of Appeal and Federal Court in 2013.

The land currently houses various government buildings, including the National Examinations Syndicate, the National Archives, the Inland Revenue Board, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Academy, the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia, as well as the Tun Razak Hockey Stadium.

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