Tee Geok Hock JC:

Introduction

[1] One of the main issues in dispute in the present case is whether a state government who, in the course of promoting and encouraging investment by private company by making promise of a leasehold of a parcel of state land which is essential for the private company's construction and operation of a sizeable factory in the state, can make such promise with impunity if it is discovered subsequent to the completion of the pump house thereat that the said parcel of state land has previously been gazetted or earmarked for an expressway construction, thereby resulting in the need to relocate and re-build another pump house at a different site and causing damages to the private company.

[2] On 31 March 2022 this Court, after having conducted a full trial and having heard submissions, answered the above question in the negative, held that the state government and its relevant land office were liable for negligence in making such a promise in the course of promoting and encouraging investment to the state and ordered them to pay damages to the plaintiffs here.

[3] Dissatisfied with the said decision the State Government and its relevant land office has a