The stay order, originally granted on Aug 11 and which was to end today, has been extended to Oct 19.
“That means the status quo has been maintained and no work, such as construction, development or logging, can be carried out, by order of the court,” said Rajesh Nagarajan, one of the lawyers representing the NGOs.
The stay order, issued by judge Shahnaz Sulaiman against the state government, its executive committee (exco) and the directors of the state forestry, and land and mines departments, called for a halt to all forms of enforcement and actions arising from the exco’s decision on May 5 to degazette the affected land pending the disposal of the suit.
Shahnaz extended the stay order during today’s leave application for a judicial review of the degazettement.
The Selangor State Development Corporation (PKNS) and Restu Mantap Sdn Bhd applied to intervene in the case today, with Rajesh stating that his clients – Lim Teck Wyn of the Shah Alam Community Forest Society (SACF) and Damien Thaman Divean of Khazanah Alam Malaysia (Peka) – had no objection.
The two NGOs had last month applied to the High Court for leave to commence judicial review proceedings in a bid to protect the forest reserve from being degazetted and levelled for development.
The NGOs are seeking a judicial review to challenge the legality of the degazettement of 406ha, roughly the size of 1,000 football fields, in the reserve.
According to Damien in a previous affidavit, the land has been alienated and development has already commenced on portions of the land parcelled out to various state-owned and private entities.
Rajesh said the leave hearing has been postponed to Oct 19, with the court instructing PKNS and Restu Mantap to file their affidavit in reply by Oct 12.
This comes after another firm, YCH Development Sdn Bhd, successfully secured a court order allowing it to intervene in the judicial review proceedings on the ground that it would be affected by the outcome of the case.
YCH Development had applied to intervene in the proceedings after claiming to have spent some RM20 million in costs and expenses to date.
In the affidavit filed in support of its application, YCH Development’s director Yap Cheng Hoe said it had entered into a joint venture agreement with Restu Mantap to develop the land.
Pursuant to the joint venture, Yap said, his company had paid RM8.6 million in premium to the state’s land office, of which RM1 million was paid in February 2004, and the remainder between February and March 2019.
Another RM11.2 million had been spent on land development, he said.