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At Awana, Genting (from left) Roger Tan, Dato' Zoal Azha and Prof Salleh Buang.

• Protecting the landowners

AWANA, GENTING HIGHLANDS, Thurs (March 13): The Bar Council welcomes the move by the government to amend section 340(3) of the National Land Code 1965 to "legislatively reverse" the Federal Court's decision of Adorna Properties Sdn Bhd v Boonsom Boonyanit, said Roger Tan, Chairman of the Conveyancing Practice Committee after attending a workshop here organised by the Director-General of Lands and Mines Department (KPTG).

In the workshop, the participants discussed at length on the possible amendments to section 340 with reference to the amendments proposed by the Bar Council in its memorandum entitled Prevention and Protection against Fraudulent Land Transactions submitted to the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Datuk Seri Hj. Azmi bin Khalid on July 24 last year. Additional amendments were also proposed by the KPTG and academic, Prof. Salleh Buang which did not conflict with the Council's proposed amendments.

Present at the workshop included the Director General of Lands and Mines, Dato' Zoal Azha bin Yusof, Senior Federal Counsel from the Attorney General's Chambers, Puan Azlin binti Sabtu, Prof. Salleh Buang and member of the CPC, Bernard Kok.

Earlier, the Council expressed disappointment with the government when the the amendment bill to the NLC passed in the last Dewan Rakyat sitting in December last year did not include any amendment to s 340.

Tan was then quoted to have said: “The NLC amendments did not deal with this issue, and the Bar Council is disappointed with this. Also, there appears to be no urgency on the part of the government to look into it. We want to make it clear that the principle under section 340 is that of deferred and not immediate indefeasibility.”

At the meeting, Dato' Zoal also informed Tan of the problem of uncollected final titles in land offices. For example, the Petaling Jaya Land Office alone has 40,000 uncollected land titles after the qualified titles have been converted.

In order to prevent any possible fraudulent transactions from taking place, Tan urges members of the Bar to inform and help their clients collect the same as soon as possible.

Prof. Salleh Buang and Bernard Kok

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