The Federal Court today ruled in favour of Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), allowing the utility company to build high-tension wires through a village, despite protests from residents.

The village in question is the new Kampung Sungai Terentang in Rawang Chinese new village.

rawang villager tnb demonstration 030907 poster Earlier in the year, the appellate court had granted an injunction filed by villagers to stop the project.

TNB subsequently appealed, winning the appeal via a majority 2-1 judgment.

Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Justice Richard Malanjum, along with Federal Court judge Justice S Augustine Paul, were in favour. The sole dissenter was Justice James Foong.

Residents claimed that TNB had begun work to put up the 275kw high-voltage tension cable lines that would divide the village into two to replace the existing 33kw capacity at present.

The higher-power lines would expose residents to the dangers of electro-magnetic waves, which studies have shown could cause cancer, leukaemia among children and infertility among women.

Resident Ong See Tong and 23 others had filed the suit seeking to stop TNB's work as it had abused the provision under the Electricity Supply Act, on the principle of ‘prudent avoidance'. It states that when there is danger posed by a particular project such as the high-tension cables, the court should rule in favour of the residents.

Central to the issue is the definition of "upgrading" as defined under Section 13 of the Act.

Malanjum and Paul agreed that the present work by the power utility company is considered ‘upgrading'.

They ruled that upgrading works had no maximum capacity limitations to be defined as such.

Foong, used a common sense approach, saying the work involves erecting new installations (i.e. high-tension towers and cables) as the new tower would be 60 metres high, with an increased capacity of 275kw.

"Hence, TNB cannot use the provision under Section 13 to encroach the land to provide upgrading works as alleged," he said.

Leong: We will ask for a review

The residents' counsel, William Leong, who is also the Selayang MP, said Foong's decision should have been adopted as it was more logical.

rawang appeal court victory 220109 liang zi jian william leong "We will file for a review over today's decision," he said.

Furthermore, Leong (right) said the Selangor government has also offered TNB alternative sites, so as to avoid the village.

"We will also inform the Selangor government and its menteri besar (of) this turnaround of events," he said.

On June 21, 2007, TNB had issued the notice, under Section 13, to 51 residents that it would build the high-powered transmission line through the village as part of the Central Area Reinforcement (CAR) project.

The villagers subsequently filed an action to stop TNB from proceeding with the work.

The High Court had on Dec 7, 2007, dismissed the application but the villagers appealed to the Court of Appeal, which granted an injunction to stop the work.

Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim had proposed an alternative route, which is densely populated, or using underground cables that have been gazetted by the state government.

The RM324 million CAR project began in July 2005 and was supposed to have been completed in August 2007.

The project involved the laying of 60km of 275kV transmission cables using TNB's old transmissions route.