Plaintiffs failed to prove continuous occupation or rights over the claimed NCR land, leading to dismissal of their claims.

[30] Now, going straight to the grounds of judgment of the learned JC, we noted that he had identified the questions which parties had advanced before him to be determined. He was of the view that his determination of the question of whether the Plaintiffs had proven their NCR over the claimed NCR land would be key terms of determining how the case would proceed, moving forward. At the end of the whole exercise, the learned JC came to the conclusion that the Plaintiffs had failed to prove their claims against the Defendants and he had then dismissed the Plaintiffs' claim with costs of RM5000 subject to allocator fees.That decision had aggrieved the Plaintiffs, hence this appeal before us.

[31] As had been alluded to earlier, the gravamen of the Plaintiffs complaint had been that the learned JC had made erroneous findings of facts resulting in the adverse decision against them.

[32] From the written submissions of the Plaintiffs, the learned JC had erred in respect of two main findings. The first error it was identified to us was concerned with the finding on creation of NCR land whereas the second error had related to the finding on D-Book issue by the learned JC. It was the submission by the learned counsel for the Plaintiffs that the findings made by the learned JC were against the weight of evidence, in particular in respect of the evidence of SP2 and against the established legal principle on admissibility of documentary evidence.

[33] The issue on the misappreciation of the evidence by the learned JC was allegedly concerned with his finding that there was insufficient evidence led by the Plaintiffs in order to successfully establish their claim for the NCR land. This would mean that even on the entirety of the whole evidence of the Plaintiffs, they had fallen short of proving their case on the required applicable standard of proof on the balance of probabilities.

[34] The second complaint by the Plaintiffs had related to the wrongful admission of the D-Book as documentary evidence for the Defendants.

[35] There was also a submission advanced before us during oral hearing of the arguments that in the circumstances of this case, if this court was of the view that the learned JC was correct in his finding that the Plaintiffs had failed to prove their claim for the entire claimed NCR land of about eight acres, it was still open for this court to allow the Plaintiffs' claim to the reduced acreage of some two acres of the said NCR land, based almost entirely on the evidence of SP2 which came to light during her cross-examination by learned counsel for the Defendants.

[36] Now, reverting to the issue pertaining to the appreciation of the evidence by the learned JC, we had perused the record of appeal, in particular,notes of proceedings of the trial of this case at the High court. The Plaintiffs had called three witnesses. PW1 was the village headman, PW2, Puan Panny, and PW3, the 1st Plaintiff named in this action. It was the Plaintiffs' case that the deceased was the person who had cut down the virgin jungle and that he had begun cultivating the subject NCR land since 1926 with planting fruit trees and growing paddy, which activities were continued after the deceased had passed on,by the 2nd Plaintiff, until the 1980s. It was said that the cultivation activities on the subject NCR land ceased in the 1980s due to the rapid development taking place in the surrounding area, according to PW3's evidence in the trial proceedings. The 2nd Plaintiff, who was alleged to have worked on the claimed NCR land had also passed on, before the commencement of the trial of this case in the High court.

[37] In the assessment of the witnesses by the learned JC, among these three witnesses, nam