A group of 81 "homeless" residents of Kampung Sungai Nipah in Batu Tiga, Shah Alam, today filed contempt proceedings against the assistant district officer of the Petaling Land and District Office Abdul Malik Haji Amin, for fraudulently misrepresenting facts of an affidavit to the court which led to the forced eviction of the residents last year.

The residents, who represented themselves, filed the application at the Shah Alam High Court at 11am.

Also named in the application were four other respondents, Petaling district officer Haji Emran Haji Kadir, the then OCPD Zulkapli Ahmad, and Tanjong Istimewa directors Lim Yew Loong and Hasan M. Taib (brother of former Selangor mentri besar and Umno vice president Muhammad M. Taib).

The four were named for abetting and conspiring with Abdul Malik in having "deliberately and wilfully obstructing the cause of justice by falsely, maliciously and fraudulently misrepresenting facts to the Shah Alam High Court".

According to Parti Sosialis Malaysia committee member V. Selvam, who is assisting the residents with their cause, the District Land Office issued eviction notices to the settlers to relocate from the land last year.

"The settlers then went to court to quash the eviction notices. The case was, however, disposed off on June 25 last year, based on Abdul Malik's affidavit," he said.

He added that Abdul Malik had, in his affidavit, stated that the land belonged to the state as the land premium had not been paid by landowner Tanjong Istimewa.

"But we have evidence to show that the rightful owner of the land is Tanjong Istimewa and that it (the land) has been mortgaged to Multi Purpose Bank."

"In the process after the dismissal of our case, the residents' houses were demolished, many were arrested by the police and assaulted by gangsters hired by Tanjong Istimewa," Selvam said.

The 81 settlers, who have been residing on the land for more than four decades before they were forced out, in their application today, claimed that they "remain homeless and completely helpless" as they have been denied relocation and the matter was still unresolved.

Many have been forced to rent houses elsewhere or seek shelter with relatives. More than a hundred school children also faced disruption in their education.

The residents also claimed that they have lodged more than a hundred police reports, but no action has been taken so far.

"High Court judge Abu Samah Nordin disposed of the case in one and a half days after he replaced an earlier judge who had been hearing it for a couple of months. He told the residents that he did not want to hear their arguments and subsequently passed his judgement," Selvam said.

He added that the residents only received the grounds of the judgement six months after the case was disposed of.

"We had to submit a memorandum of complaint to Chief Justice Eusoff Chin to get the grounds. And exactly two weeks after the memo was sent, we received the grounds of the judgement," said Selvam, adding that this caused considerable delay for the residents in filing an appeal against the High Court decision in the Court of Appeal.