The Court of Appeal has upheld an interlocutory injunction granted to Orang Asli Seletar community of Seletar in the Iskandar Development Region of Johor Baru against two companies involved in the development there.

The High Court in Johor Baru had on Dec 10 last year granted the injunction application barring Node Dua Sdn Bhd and Strait Bay Sdn Bhd from encroaching on the customary land of the community, which is the subject of their claim.

The community claimed that they had acquired customary rights to the land since the 1950s and hence the defendants had trespassed on parts of their burial ground.

This follows the two companies’ reclamation, construction and earth works on portions of the indigenous community’s land despite the pending court action.

The two companies are among the 13 defendants named by the Orang Asli Seletar in their main civil suit.

The injunction issued yesterday was the unanimous decision of a three-member panel headed by Justice Lim Yee Lan, with the other two judges being Justices Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid and Mohd Zawawi Mohd Salleh.

Suit against 13 filed two years ago

Two years ago, 188 members of the Orang Asli Seletar community filed the suit against the Johor government and 12 others for encroaching into their land.

Among the plaintiffs are Salim Palon (tok batin of Kg Sg Temun), Mat Inder (Kg Bakar Batu representative) and Edy Salim (Kg Sg Temun representative).

The defendants they named are, among others, the Iskandar Regional Development Authority and the Johor Land and Mines Office.

The civil suit follows the Orang Asli Seletar suffering continuous encroachment into their customary land by various state and private parties in Johor.

Prior to filing the suit, they have also raised their grouses with the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and even held protests at the Johor state legislative assembly in 2011.

The Orang Asli Seletar in their suit are seeking for, among others:

  • A declararatory order of their customary land in and around Kampung Orang Asli Sungai Temon and Kampung Orang Asli Bakar Batu;

 

  • Declaratory orders in relation to  their communal customary rights and interests in relation to the sea, seabed, rivers, river beds, tidal inlets, bays, estuaries, harbours or subterranean waters (or the beds or subsoil under them or the airspace over them), the shore or subsoil under the shore (between the high water and the low water), inter-tidal areas and all other waters within the area demarcated; and

    •  

  • Damages from the defendants for trespassing and the destruction of their customary land, including their burial grounds; and the activities of the defendants within the customary waters, including the clearing of mangroves and/or land reclamation.
    • Following yesterday's Court of Appeal decision, the case is now fixed for continued trial at the Johor Baru High Court on July 21.

    Lawyers Steven Thiru, K Mohan, Yogeswaren Subramaniam and Aaron Mathews represented the indigenous community, while Alvin Julian and Ankit Sanghvi appeared for the the two developers.