In 1938 the name of the defendant was recorded in the register of Mukim V, Batu Pahat, as the owner of a certain piece of land. She had been issued with, and was rightfully in possession of, the usual document of title in such cases, namely an extract fro.m the Mukim Register.

On the 5th August 1939, the plaintiff, as the administrator of the estate of Nyonya binte Bahudin, made an application to the Collector to record theplaintiff as owner of the land under section 42 of the Land Enactment. The Collector held an inquiry under the section. The defendant was present and gave evidence on her own behalf. The Collector heard also the evidence of a number of other witnesses and at the conclusion of his enquiry was of opinion that the application of the plaintiff should be granted. He made an order in accordance with his decision, and the necessary entry was made in the mukim register.

The defendant did not avail herself of her right of appeal to the Commissioner, but she retained possession of her document of title and in the present action the plaintiff asks that she be ordered to deliver it to him together with the coupon card and the tapping licence.

Now the Land Enactment has provided a special procedure with reference to such a case as this. As soon as the Assistant Collector had decided in favour of the plaintiff he decided in effect that the document of title, E.M.R. 1825, had been issued in error to the defendant. Section 23 of the Enactment, which appears in Part I under the title "General", empowered the Collector to issue a notice to the defendant to deliver up the document to be cancelled. If the defendant refused to comply with the notice, the Collector might apply to the Court for a summons to the defendant to show cause, and the Court had jurisdiction to direct the cancellation of the document and the substitution for it of a document of title in favour of the plaintiff.

These provisions are important. The proceedings have to be initiated by the Collector. The document of title wrongly issued has to be delivered to him to be cancelled, there is no provision for any delivery to the rightful owner. The Court has no jurisdiction until the holder of the erroneous document neglects or refuses to give it up and until the Collector has applied for a summons. But whether the document is delivered up or not, the rightful owner has no right to it; what he eventually obtains is a new document of title. I therefore think that the plaintiff's action is misconceived. Mr. Das on his behalf referred me to a passage in Halsbury's Laws of England Vol. 24 page 239, stating that an owner of land is entitled to maintain an action for the title-deeds to the land. This can surely have no application to a case like the present where the title-deed is a document of title which has been issued to the wrong person under a system of registration. I am satisfied that the plaintiff has no right to the possession of the document; and that the Court should not assume jurisdiction to rectify otherwise than in accordance with the mode prescribed.

There was a further point raised by Mr. MacIntyre on behalf of the defendant. He submitted that the Collector had no jurisdiction to make the order he did under section 42 of the Land Enactment, that his decision was therefore a nullity, and that being so, the foundation of the plaintiff's case disappears. He put his argument in this way. The jurisdiction of the Collector to hold an inquiry under section 42 arises only when a person is asserting a right otherwise than by succession to a deceased proprietor or by virtue of an agreement for sale. The plaintiff in this case applied to the Collector under section 42 as administrator of the estate of one Nyonya, deceased, he was therefore asserting a right by succession to a deceased proprietor and the Collector's jurisdiction was ousted. Mr. Das, for the plaintiff, said that an administrator does not assert a right by succession, and referred me to se