An appellant claiming to be a bona fide purchaser must provide credible evidence to support this claim to succeed against defendants for negligence and statutory duty breaches.

[1] This appeal was against the decision of the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissing the appellant's counterclaim against the respondents with costs. The respondents were the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th defendants respectively in the main suit filed by Ee Chong Wah, Ee Soon Kee and Goodland Realty Sdn Bhd ("Goodland Realty"), and were the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th defendants respectively in the counterclaim filed by the appellant (the 1st defendant in the main suit).

[2] The appellant was the only plaintiff in the counterclaim against the respondents. For convenience, we shall refer to the respondents as the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th defendants respectively.

[3] Having heard arguments by both sides, we reserved judgment to a date to be fixed. We have now reached a unanimous decision and this is our judgment.

[4] To provide context, it is necessary to set out the salient facts of the main suit from which the appellant's counterclaim against the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th defendants arose. They are as follows. Ee Chong Wah and Ee Soon Kee (the 1st and 2nd plaintiffs in the main suit) were the two shareholders and directors of Goodland Realty (the 3rd plaintiff in the main suit), who is the registered proprietor of a piece of land held under EMR 2824, Lot 1101, Mukim Cheras, Selangor ("the land").

[5] At all material times, Goodland Realty was in possession of the EMR handwritten issue document of title ("the EMR title") to the land. Unbeknownst to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd plaintiffs, on 14 May 2002, the 5th defendant who is the Land Administrator of Hulu Langat Selangor, converted the EMR title to a GM computer printed IDT ("the GM title"), namely hak milik Geran Mukim No. 872, Lot 1101, Mukim Cheras, Daerah Hulu Langat, Selangor under para 8(1) of the Fourteenth Schedule to the National Land Code ("the NLC ").

[6] The truth is, Goodland Realty never made any application to the 5th, 6th or 7th defendants to convert the EMR title to the GM title. Nor was Goodland Realty ever asked by the 5th defendant to surrender the EMR title to the 5th or 7th defendants for cancellation and destruction and to collect the GM title as replacement for the EMR title.

[7] On 1 March 2012, ie ten years after the conversion of the EMR title to the GM title by the 5th defendant, Goodland Realty was informed orally by one Dato' Lee Siew Neng through the 1st plaintiff, at a meeting, that based on a search conducted at the Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia ("the SSM"), the 1st and 2nd plaintiffs had been replaced as directors of Goodland Realty by Chong Wing Fat, Lim Yoke Sim and Low Beng Hong (the 2nd, 3rd and 4th defendants in the main suit).

[8] The 1st and 2nd plaintiffs then made a search at the Hulu Langat Land Office and discovered the following:

(a) That the land had purportedly been sold by Goodland Realty to the appellant for a sum of RM2 million;

(b) That on 1 February 2012, the land had purportedly been transferred by Goodland Realty to the appellant upon registration of a Memorandum of Transfer ("the MOT") which was presented by Messrs Peter Pui & Partners, the solicitors for the appellant; and

(c) That the appellant had become the new registered proprietor of the land on 1 February 2012; and

(d) That the photocopies of the NRIC purportedly belonging to the 1st and 2nd plaintiffs that were used in the purported transfer of the land by Goodland Realty to the appellant were false as they had been forged by using photographs of unknown persons.

[9] The 1st and 2nd plaintiffs also made a search at the SSM and discovered the following:

(a) The 2nd and/or the 3rd or 4th defendants in the main suit had appointed themselves as the new directors of Goodland Realty;

(b) The 2nd and/or the 3rd and 4th d