The High Court in Ipoh today allowed an application for an injunction by Felcra Bhd to restrain 20 of its participants from harvesting and collecting oil palm fruits from 20 plots of land involved in its replanting project.

Judge Hamider Singh made the decision in chambers, lawyer for the defendant, Wan Rohimi Wan Daud said when met by reporters.

He also said that the dispute between Felcra and the affected participants would be brought before an arbitrator in Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, lawyer S Murthi, representing Felcra, said his client had withdrawn its application for an injunction against two people from Gerak Mantap Enterprise after they promised in court not to interfere in the dispute between Felcra and the 20 settlers.

Felcra had filed the application for the injunction last Feb 13 to restrain the 22 men from harvesting and collecting oil palm fruits from the 20 plots of land involved in its replanting project at Felcra Belia Nasaruddin in Mukim Lambor Kanan pending the disposal of the case by an arbitrator.

Felcra claims contractual rights

According to the writ of summons, Felcra stated that, based on an agreement dated March 30, 2006, it spent RM29 million on the project and therefore claimed that it had contractual rights to harvest the oil palm fruits.

However, the participants claimed that they earned a very unreasonable income as compared with the current market price for the commodity, besides being confused with the location of the land involved and the amount of their debt with Felcra as it was not clearly stated in the agency's profit and loss statement.

The participants also claimed that several meetings held with Felcra failed to achieve any positive results, resulting in them to continue to harvest and collect the oil palm fruits.

- Bernama