Gopal Sri Ram JCA:

The appellant before us (plaintiff in the court below) was the registered proprietor of approximately 996 hectares of land situated in the State of Johor. It filed proceedings in the High Court of Johor challenging the decision by the first defendant (the State Government of Johor) to acquire the land, which I will, for convenience, refer to as "the subject property". This forms the subject matter of the Civil Appeal No. J-01-30-96 ("the first appeal"). There is another appeal before us arising out of the same subject matter. It is Civil Appeal J-02-68-96 ("the second appeal"). I will say something more of the second appeal in a moment.

Returning to the facts of the case, the plaintiff in its statement of claim, apart from joining the Government of Johor and the Land Administrator, cited Prolink Sdn. Bhd. as the third defendant. The gist of the appellant's complaint is that the subject property was acquired contrary to law in the sense that the acquisition was ultra vires or vitiated on "Anisminic" grounds (the reference here being to the decision of the House of Lords in Anisminic Ltd v. Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 AC 147) or for "Wednesbu