Clement Skinner JC:

There are 16 appeals before me which, by order of the High Court, Ipoh, made on 27 November 1997, were consolidated to be heard together. The appellant is the registered owner of a parcel of land described as State Lease 556, Lot 24 Mukim of Ulu Telom, Cameron Highlands, (hereafter the said land) which is occupied by 16 different persons (hereafter the respondents) who each occupy different portions of varying sizes of the said land. On 7 March 1983, the appellant commenced 16 different suits at the Cameron Highlands Magistrate's Court to recover possession of the said land from the respondents.

In all the cases, the appellant's pleadings are in their material parts identical, brief, and consist of four paragraphs only. The whole of the appellant's case is to be found in para 3 and 4 thereof which reads (and here I adopt for convenience, what is pleaded in Rayuan Sivil No. 11-19-96):

3. A part of the said piece of land were let by the plaintiff to the defendant by an oral agreement on a monthly tenancy from the 1st day of January 1955 at a rent of RM1.67 per month.

4. The tenancy was duly determined by a notice to quit dated 17th day of September 198