The wait and hope for 370 settlers from Felda Serting and Felda Raja Alias in Negeri Sembilan came to a sad end today when the judge dismissed their claims with costs.

Seremban High Court Judge Zabariah Mohd Yusof ruled the plaintiffs failed to establish they have the locus standi to sue.

Judge Zabariah also ordered each plaintiff to pay RM1,000 to the defendants as costs.

The plaintiffs’ journey in court began in August 2010, when a group of 766 from the two Felda settlements in Jempol filed a suit against Felda and Felda Palm Industries Sdn Bhd for fraud and breach of trust.

They also claimed losses of more than RM200 million.

Since then, many withdrew and at least 16 passed away. Up to Nov 27 last year, the number of plaintiffs had dwindled from 766 to 370.

'Failure to prove fraud'

Reading her judgement to a packed courtroom today, Zabariah listed out the grounds for dismissal.

Among others, she said the plaintiffs failed to prove the element of fraud and the quantum of loss.

She added that the relationship between Felda and the settlers was not as their trustee but instead, it was a contractual relationship.

“The plaintiffs’ claim was for the period of 1995 to September 1998 for purported fraud in the reduction of KPG (Kadar Perahan Gred, or oil palm extraction grade).

“This relates to a time before the Sistem Belian Terus was introduced.

“Prior to September 1998, the Sistem Kadar Perahan was being adopted and there was no KPG involved in that system.

“Therefore any allegation of fraud in the reduction of the KPG prior to September 1998 is misconceived and baseless,” she said.

Karip Mohd Salleh ( photo ), who led the settlers in the suit, vowed to fight on.

“Even though we know Felda gave us low KPG, we have no choice but to sell our oil palm fruits to Felda because we, the Felda settlers, are not allowed to sell to outsiders.

“If we sell to outsiders, Felda can take action against us. I think the court should consider this factor.

“Even though we are quite frustrated today with the decision which does not favour us, we accept the court’s decision.

“However we are still in high spirit. We believe we still have strong grounds to win this case.

“We will sit down with our lawyers to discuss or next move and we may appeal this case to Appeal Court,” Karip said.

‘Settlers paid lower rate’

Explaining the chronology of the case, lawyer T Kumar said the basis of the suit is that the settlers were paid a lower rate of the oil palm extraction grade (KPG), averaging 18.9 percent for the last 15 years.

“The settlers suspected something was amiss when they realised that they could not match the recommended rate from Malaysian Palm Oil Board, which was higher at 22 percent.

"In March and July 2010, the settlers sent their fruit yield samples to two different independent laboratories to assess the actual rate of the KPG and the results showed a much higher rate of 24 percent and 25.5 percent,“ said Kumar.

The KPG rate which came back from the laboratory was 6 percent to 6.5 percent more than the rate Felda Palm Industries Sdn Bhd had used.

“Based on the 6 percent losses of the fruits yield on the oil palm extraction grade for the year 2008, each Felda settlers from the group of the 370 affected Felda settlers faced losses amounted to RM20,039.05 each for the year 2008 alone,” he explained.

Kumar said he and Shahid Ali, another lawyer for the plaintiffs,will discuss with the settlers whether to appeal after studying the written judgement.

The defendants were represented by counsel Cheng Mai and Ahmad Al-Hady.