The High Court has ruled for two Orang Asli villages in a claim over 2,036 hectares of land that the Pahang government gazetted as Malay reserve land and land belonging to Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Felcra).

It what has been hailed as a landmark decision, Justice Akhtar Tahir's judgment delivered in the court in Temerloh yesterday ordered the Pahang Land and Mines Office to gazette the disputed land as Orang Asli customary rights land within a year.

The judge also ruled that Felcra's projects in Bukit Rok and Kampung Ibam, in Bera, are illegal and should be removed, The Star reported today.

"The rights were accrued when the Semelai people inhabited the land even before other inhabitants, including the Malays, arrived.

"Both the Felcra and Malay reserve land are subject to the rights of the Orang Asli," Justice Akhtar ruled in his summarised judgment.

He said the court recognised the Semelai people through their early writings and and remnants, noting that the instincts of the Orang Asli to roam and live through the forest was inbuilt.

"Like fishermen, the Orang Asli's instincts cannot be extinguished by providing them with better living," the judge added.

Bukit Rok village chief Mohamad Nohing and five others filed the judicial review application in 2007 against the state Land and Mines Department director, the state government, the Orang Asli Development Department director-general and Malaysian government.

Keep proper land records, gov't told

On June 29, the High Court in Temerloh granted to the Orang Asli community leave to initiate the judicial review application.

Their problem began in 2005, when villagers from Kampung Ibam and Kampung Bukit Rok complained of timber loggers encroaching into their land.

The Star also quoted Justice Akhtar as advising the government to keep proper land records as the search for documents itself had taken a number of years,. Further, the witnesses called were uninterested and not conversant on the matter at hand.

"I hope these can be rectified," the judge said.

The Orang Asli group was represented by Lim Heng Seng, Fara Nadia Hashim, S Yogeswaran and M Ramachelvam while senior federal counsel Kamal Azira Hassan and Nor Hisham Ismail appeared for the respondents.