Court dismisses NCR land claimants’ application for leave to appeal

KUCHING: The Federal Court here on Wednesday dismissed an application by several native customary rights land claimants for leave to appeal to the Federal Court.

The applicants have filed three separate suits against Felcra Berhad ( Felcra) and two others alleging that its oil palm plantation sits on their NCR land.

In the first suit, Rasti Sidi, Hamzah Dena and their family members from Kampung Gedong claimed they had NCR over 242 acres of land between Sg Kuala Ulu and Sg Kuala Hilir in Gedong.

In the second suit, Abang Ideris Abang Jemali and his family, also from Gedong claimed they had NCR over 137 acres of land around Sg Kuala Ulu and Sg Kuala Hilir and Sedilu Gedong Land District.

In the third suit, Diba Kala and a few villagers from Kampung Kuala, Jalan Gedong, Serian claimed they had NCR over 60 acres of land.

The claimants also claimed damages of RM13.9 million, RM7.8 million and RM9.2 million respectively against Felcra.

All the three suits filed by the NCR land claimants against Felcra were jointly tried and were dismissed with costs by the High Court on Sept 19, 2014. The High Court also granted Felcra’s counter claim for damages to be assessed against the NCR land claimants.

Dissatisfied, the NCR land claimants appealed to the Court of Appeal which dismissed their appeals with costs on Oct 19, 2015.

In their application for leave to the Federal Court, they claimed that their cases raised questions of law of public importance. The proposed questions relate to declarations or endorsement by community or village headmen on NCR land ownership, standard of proof relating to community maps and extent of boundaries of NCR lands claimed.

However, the Federal Court ruled that the proposed questions were issues of evidence and did not meet the threshold under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act for leave to be granted. Consequently, the Federal Court dismissed the NCR land claimants’ application.

During the hearing in the Federal Court, Felcra and the other two respondents were represented by Counsel Anga John Lawrence while the NCR land claimants or applicants were represented by Counsel Dominique Ng.