The Selangor Sri Vadakara Batra Kaliamman Devotees Association said they only learned about the transfer when they received a summons from the Shah Alam High Court filed by developer Sasa Mewah Sdn Bhd in July this year, asking them to vacate the land.
“It was only then that it came to our knowledge that the Petaling land and district office had transferred the land title to Sasa Mewah in February this year,” the association’s adviser Arun Dorasamy told reporters today.
The association’s assistant secretary M Moghana Sunder also claimed that Sasa Mewah does not have any plans to develop the land.
“The new landowner has never consulted or discussed the matter with us. What is shocking is, how can the land and district office allow the land to be transferred when the issue of its ownership has yet to be resolved?”
Arun said the ownership of the land has been a contentious issue since 1989, when the land and district office subdivided the original lot (Lot 199) to 10 separate lots. It then transferred the land ownership to Concrete Gold Sdn Bhd in 1998.
“All this was done without the temple’s knowledge. We only knew about it in 2012 when Concrete Gold asked us to relocate,” he said.
The temple subsequently agreed with the relocation on the condition that it be moved to a new site in Putra Heights itself, which it had identified in 2017 and applied for to the Subang Jaya municipal council.
However, the application was rejected due to “opposition from residents” near the new site.
The municipal council later proposed three new sites in 2019 at Seri Kembangan and Puchong but the proposal was rejected by the temple due to their inappropriate locations, Moghana Sunder said.
He added that after 2019, the temple did not hear any more updates from the municipal council on its land status until recently.
Arun said the temple hopes to hear an explanation after handing a memorandum to Nurunnajmi Amat Janji, an assistant officer from the Petaling land and district office today.
“If there’s no satisfactory answer and amicable solution from them after this, we will refer the matter to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for further investigation,” he said, adding that the association suspected the authority of “mishandling” the land.
He said the association has decided not to relocate the temple and was considering all options, including purchasing the land.