The Court of Appeal has nullified a decision by the Selangor land and mines office and religious authorities to seize a 26-acre land in Mukim Bestari Jaya in Kuala Selangor, to build a mosque.

The unanimous decision was made by a three-member bench led by Justice Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, who said they agreed with the submission by lawyers representing United Allied Empire Sdn Bhd (UAE), as it found the High Court judicial commissioner had erred in its decision.

“We ought to invoke our appellant powers to overturn the decision. The learned judicial commissioner failed to appreciate the evidence which led to a plainly wrong decision.

“The decision by the High Court is set aside and we allow all the prayers set out by the appellant,” he said.

UAE had filed a judicial review and named the director of the Land and Mines Office, the Kuala Selangor district office, the Selangor Islamic Department, the Selangor Islamic Council, the Selangor Tithe Board and the Selangor government as respondents.

According to Justice Abang Iskandar, the court noticed there was procedural impropriety in the case, and hence the decision to overturn the High Court's decision.

The acquisition was made sometime in 2013 after the company, a developer, submitted a plan to develop the land and allocated a portion of it for the expansion of an existing mosque.

However, the authorities decided to acquire the entire land, purportedly to build the mosque under the National Land Code.

The other judges were Justice Zamani A Rahim and Justice Zaharah Yusof.

Justice Abang Iskandar ordered the Kuala Selangor district office, the Land and Mines office and Selangor government to pay RM50,000 costs while the three religious bodies also had to pay RM50,000 costs.

Decision protects landowners

The developer's lawyers led by Rosli Dahlan said today's decision protected the rights of land owners as the authorities had to follow the various strict procedures that was underlined.

“The acquisition of the land is hence declared illegal and the authorities had acted mala fide in trying to acquire it,” he said.

The lawyer said the judicial review application where it sought 24 reliefs including to nullify the acquisition, had to be made as all attempts to try and settle the matter with the then menteri besar failed.

“During submissions, I told the court that this court should not allow the religious authorities to rob in the name of God,” he said.

The company believed that the acquisition, which the religious authorities claimed ignorance of, were made to shoulder the state's land bank as it was not corroborated by evidence.

In evidence provided in court, the religious authorities later claimed that the acquisition was also for a cemetery and other buildings.

The company claimed that the state did not issue a form A to the company for acquisition and when the company knew about it, it submitted the form K to forcefully make the acquisition.

The developer contended that the land was acquired without prior notice and was in violation of the Land Acquisition Act and that the acquisition was falsely declared.

The company claimed that the acquisition was a violation of its constitutional guarantees on ownership of land.

Selangor assistant state legal adviser Naziah Mokhtar appeared for the state authorities while lawyers Kamaazura Md Kamel and Siti Rahimah Khalil appeared for the three state religious authorities.