Thursday April 22, 2010
Lawyer loses land case
PUTRAJAYA: It was a victorious moment for 217 estate workers who were finally declared as the rightful owners of a piece of land in Perak, said to be worth about RM80mil now.
Unanimously dismissing the leave application to appeal by lawyer Gurbachan Singh and four others, a three-man Federal Court bench upheld the Court of Appeal’s ruling ordering the lawyer to return the 1,472ha plot in Hutan Melintang to the estate workers.
The judges comprised Court of Appeal president Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff, Federal Court judge Justice Hashim Yusoff and Court of Appeal judge Justice Suriyadi Halim Omar.
About 20 of the estate workers who turned up at the Federal Court yesterday smiled and hugged each other outside the courtroom after the judgment was handed down.
The court also granted them costs of RM25,000.
Counsel N.P. Ramachandran represented the workers, while Malik Imtiaz Sarwar appeared for Gurbachan.
On July 6, 1994, P. Vellasamy, V. Balakrishnan, M. Krishnan and C. Mukan, on behalf of the 217 workers, filed a suit against Gurbachan and his firm Bachan and Kartar Co to retain their rights to the land.
They named Gurbachan, his firm, Simpang Empat Plantations Sdn Bhd, Regal Establishment Sdn Bhd and MBF Finance Bhd as the defendants.
In their statement of claim, the plaintiffs said they had appointed Gurbachan and his firm as their solicitors to advise them on taking appropriate legal action after discovering that the land would be auctioned off.
They claimed Gurbachan had used Regal Establishment to purchase the land and changed the ownership of the land to the company.
The plaintiffs said they discharged Gurbachan and his firm as their solicitors after realising that the latter had fraudulently misrepresented them.
They sought for the court to declare the sale and purchase agreement entered between Gurbachan and them null and void.
The defendants denied all the allegations in their statement of defence.
In January 2006, the Ipoh High Court dismissed their application and ruled that Gurbachan had purchased the land in his personal capacity and did not bid for it on behalf of the workers in September 1992.
The said land was auctioned off at RM4.58mil 18 years ago.
In December last year, the Court of Appeal, in a majority 2-1 judgment, ordered Gurbachan to return the plot to the estate workers after allowing their appeal.
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