Court grants stay over land acquisition for MRT

KUALA LUMPUR(Bernama) -- The acquisition of nine lots of land in Bukit Bintang area for the Klang Valley-Sungai Buloh-Kajang Mass Rapid Transit project (MRT) will not proceed until Sept 15.

This was after the High Court had on Tuesday, Sept 6 extended an interim stay of the acquisition of nine lots of the land until that date.

On Aug 5, two registered land owners and three companies filed a leave application for a judicial review challenging the government acquisition of the land.

The two land owners are LTS Resources Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd and Pedoman Cekap Sdn Bhd while the three others are T.S. Law Corporation and its two subsidiaries, LTS Properties (M) Sdn Bhd and LTS Capital Sdn Bhd.

They had on Aug 23, obtained an interim stay of the acquisition of the land until today.

The court had set today to give its decision over the five applicants' leave application.

Counsel Su Tiang Joo for the five applicants told reporters that the judge, Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, had postponed the decision to Sept 15 as he needed time to look into the case.

Su also said that in the meantime the said acquisition of the land, scheduled for Sept 9, 13 and 14, had been stayed pending the decision.

In their application, the five named the Federal Territory and Urban Well-being Minister, the Malaysian government and the Land Administrator of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur as respondents.

They among others sought an order to quash the respondents' approval for acquisition of the land under Section 3E(1) of the Land Acquisition Act 1960.

In the application, the parent company, T.S. Law Corporation, said it had intended to develop a business centre in the Bukit Bintang area since the end of 1990.

With that intention, T.S. Law -- through its subsidiaries, LTS Resources and Pedoman Cekap -- had gradually bought 30 lots of land between 1999 and 2011 for more than RM130 million.

The applicants stated that there was no need for any land acquisition as the MRT Project was planned to be built underground. - Bernama