The Pahang High Court has rejected the application of stay submitted by the state government and the the director of lands and mines over their alleged illegal encroachment on Orang Asli ancestral and customary land.

The state government had filed an application for a stay of the High Court order to gazette the ancestral and customary land as aboriginal and reserve land.

This was pending the outcome of their appeal at the Court of Appeal. However their application was dismissed.  

“The High Court held that there are no special circumstances for a stay,” Lim Heng Seng, the lawyer representing the Orang Asli tribe, told Malaysiakini on Friday after the High Court's judgement.

“They (the government) have been given a year from the date of the High Court's judgment on Dec 19, 2012 to effect the reservation of the Semelai land,” he added.

 

The High Court in its decision in 2012 had directed that the state government together with the department of lands and mine to vacate and de-gazette their illegal land encroachment within one year.

At the same time, in a report by The Star Online , Justice Akhtar Tahir ordered the Pahang lands and mines department to gazette the entire 2,000 hectares of Orang Asli ancestral land, also within the year.

“The state government has failed to comply with the High Court order on both matters,” Lim said.

Lim also said that the 1,000 acres of customary land taken by Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Felcra) for their development project in Bukit Rok and Kampung Ibam is illegal encroachment.

“The Bera Malay reserve land that is encroaching on the orang asli land is also illegal,” he said.

“(However), Felcra have completely ignored the orders and had not taken a single step towards performing the directives of the High Court.

“It is disappointing,” he said.

‘Subject to the rights of the Orang Asli’

Justice Akhtar, in his judgment, said that both the Felcra and Malay reserve land were subject to the rights of the Orang Asli.

The court decreed that the reserve land was valuable to the Semelai people as they were the earliest inhabitants on that land.

The Semelais are the aboriginal people of peninsular Malaysia where their ancestors have for generations settled as an aboriginal community in the land of the Mukim of Guai, district of Bera in Pahang.

In 2007, several villagers were given eviction notices which required them to remove their huts/buildings within 14 days of the notice or Bera land administrators will demolish them.

The tussle have been going on for seven years.

The date for case management is yet to be fixed.