Pos Lanai action committee chairman Jeffry Hassan and 10 other Orang Asli had filed a suit to halt Tenaga Nasional Berhad’s (TNB) hydroelectric dam project in Telom.

They named TNB, the Orang Asli Development Department (Jakoa) and the Pahang and federal governments as the defendants.

Jeffry said the Temerloh High Court ordered the plaintiffs to pay RM3,000 each to the last three defendants.

He said they had recently received a letter from the Attorney-General’s Chambers to settle the amount.

“We are appealing to the AG to waive the total costs as the case is of public interest,” he told reporters before handing over the appeal to Wasri Ahmad Sujani, a representative of the AG, at his office here today.

The hydroelectric dam, approved in 2013, was to be the third biggest in Peninsular Malaysia, generating 132 megawatts of energy.

In their statement of claim against TNB, filed in May 2015, the plaintiffs said TNB had received the green light for the project from the Pahang government and the Energy Commission, but neither the Orang Asli nor the Department of the Environment was consulted.

They claimed the project, covering 7,600ha of ancestral land, would displace almost 300 indigenous families, comprising 1,500 individuals.

TNB managed to obtain an injunction against the plaintiffs from stopping them from going ahead with the project.

Jeffry said the villagers had been living on the land, which they relied on for their livelihood, for centuries.

“We will lose our livelihood from the collection and planting of resources in the forest and traditional herbs, our source of clean water and our burial land,” he said.

PSM secretary-general A Sivarajan, who accompanied Jeffry and committee member Yunus Sebel, hoped the Pakatan Harapan government would give the villagers an assurance the project would not proceed.

“We want the government to scrap the project which has come to a halt,” he said.