Nik Hashim FCJ:

[1] The appellant, the Board of Engineers, Malaysia, a statutory body established pursuant to s 3 of the Registration of Engineers Act 1967 (the Act) appeals to the Federal Court against the decision of the Court of Appeal given on 17 February 2004, whereby the Court of Appeal dismissed the appellant's appeal with costs against the decision of the High Court which allowed Leong Pui Kun's, the respondent's application for orders of certiorari and mandamus to quash the appellant's decision dated 13 July 2000 cancelling the respondent's registration as a professional engineer and to direct the appellant to reinstate the respondent as a professional engineer registered with the appellant respectively.

Factual Background

[2] The facts are that on 16 September 1995 a 32-metre span of partly constructed steel truss linkway bridge at the Matshushita Television Co Sdn Bhd factory in Shah Alam, collapsed whereby one person was killed and five persons were injured (the incident). Soon after the incident, the Director of the Jabatan Kerja Raya Selangor set up a 4-member Technical SubCommittee to investigate into the incident. Dr Judin bin Hj. Abdul Karim, Ketua Kumpulan Kajian Struktur Dan Analisa (Jabatan Kerja Raya) was one of them. The others were: Dato' Ir Hj. Abu Bakar bin Hj. Mohd Amin, Director JKR Selangor as Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Kecil Teknikal, Dr Gue See Sew and Tuan Hj. Yahya bin Hj. Ariffin. The findings were set out in the Technical Sub-Committee Report (TSC report) (pp 866-918 of the appeal record). The findings of TSC report indicates, inter alia, underdesign of the linkway bridge to support the given loads during construction, ineffective lateral restraints and weaknesses in the current system of construction supervision and enforcement as the root causes of the collapse (see p 870 of the appeal record).

[3] The appellant set up a 3-member Ad Hoc Committee (Ir Wan Mohamed bin Ismail, Ir Prof Ishak bin Abdul Rahman and Ir Dr Khoo Ping Sen) (the AHC) with regard to the incident and the role of the registered engineer involved, ie, the respondent. The actions taken by the AHC are as detailed in their report and included three meetings, on 26 September 1996, 10 October 1996 and 22 July 1997. The meeting on 10 October 1996 was attended by the respondent in person. The AHC set out its recommendations in a report (the AHC report) (pp 1040-1108 of the appeal record) to the appellant for the appellant to conduct a hearing under s 15 of the Act. The conclusions and recommendations of the AHC are found at pp 1048-1049 of the appeal record. Before the AHC, the respondent clearly acknowledged the deficiencies in the design of the linkway bridge and supervision of the construction works and the AHC report at pp 1048-1049 states:

3.6 The Investigating Committee's report had highlighted the deficiency of the design in terms of the effective length, lateral buckling, slenderness of the beam, etc.

3.7 Ir Leong PK explained that the whole project costed about RM35M. The Linkway cost was about 1% of the total cost. The Linkway design was prepared by Abu Bakar Alias, a Graduate Engineer Under normal circumstances, Ir Leong himself will check the design and the design will again be counterchecked by 2 engineers from Kajima Design Asia. However, in this particular case, somebody must have missed this part of the design and resulted in the collapse. He stated that the overloading is critical and agreed with the comment that if the Linkway was properly designed, the overloading would not affect it and cause the collapse.

4.1 The members noted that the design for the Linkway Bridge was given to a Graduate Engineer with less than 1 year design experience. Ir Leong informed that he has been in practice for over 10 years and it is unfortunate such a mistake had slipped through. Although he did not prepare the design but as director in charge of the project, he has to sign the plans and take responsibility. The important thing is tha