Liew Chin Nam @ Liew Yew Kheong is not giving up his joss-stick business without a fight - he has applied for an injunction to stop the authorities from evicting him from the site on Wednesday when the notice expires.

The application, filed today at the Ipoh High Court, seeks to stop the Kinta district Land Office and the Railway Asset Corporation (RAC) from enforcing the notice.

liew chin nam yew kheong joss stick manufacturer ktm land perak 240609 04 Liew, 64, is also seeking a declaration that the notice issued by the land office is null and void and has no effect whatsoever, said his lawyer G Balasunderam.

Liew has been operating the business on railway reserve land in Kantan, Chemor, for about 48 years.

He had paid monthly rental of RM125 up to February, when the landowner - Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB) - stopped accepting payment.

The land office had issued a notice dated June 17, informing Liew that he is occupying state land without lawful authority as stated under Section 425 of the National Land Code (NLC). He was given two weeks to vacate the site.

“Liew is not a squatter as claimed by the land office but a legitimate tenant of the KTMB for the past 40 years,” Balasunderam told Malaysiakini .

“He is a’ tenant holding over’ as he had been paying the RM125 monthly rental until February this year. Subsequent monthly rental payments to RAC (the business arm of KTMB) were returned.

“The only way they can evict him is by getting a court order and not by bulldozing their way through under Section 425 of the NLC.”

‘Bad experience previously’

On Friday, Liew and Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s K Kunasekaran had met Chang Ko Youn, the Perak special adviser on Chinese Affairs, and handed him a letter addressed to Menteri Besar Zambry Abd Kadir.

Liew appealed to Zambry to revoke the notice and to direct the land office from interfering in the matter as well as to identify an alternative site for his business.

He further asked that KTMB, RAC and Gamuda (developer of the railway double-tracking project) be instructed to settle the matter through negotiations.

ipoh ktm land title dispute 290609 g balasunderam Liew asked that all parties involved in the dispute be stopped from encouraging ‘illegal destruction and damage’ to his property.

Chang had promised to help Liew to find a solution, agreeing that an alternative site should be found for Liew.

“This stay order is only a precautionary move, in case the state government’s move backfires on us,” said Balasunderam (right) .

“We had a bad experience with the Kinta District Land Office in a case involving 31 Indian families in Kampung Chepor (now Kampung Sri Kelabang). The land office gave them an old mining pool as the alternative site.”

“The affected families spent thousands of ringgit to engage a private developer to fill the pool and build houses on the reclaimed land.

“Then the land office suddenly bulldozed all the houses although negotiations were in progress on the issuance of land titles to the owners. It’s a case of once bitten, twice shy - we do not want the same thing to happen in Liew’s case.”