Lamin Mohd. Yunus J:

The applicant in this case applied for an order by way of an originating motion that the Registrar "be directed to remove the Registrar's Caveat No. 601/88 Jilid 26 Folio 54 registered on that piece of land held under HS (M) 13362 PT No. 947/34. Mukim Kuala Kuantan" (Encl. 1). In the supporting affidavit (Encl. 2) it was deposed that the applicant was the registered chargee of the said land which was charged to secure a loan of RM77,000 from the applicant in favour of the chargor. As the chargor had been in default of the loan, he therefore "on or about January 1989" approached the applicant with the view of disposing of the charged property to a third party by way of a private sale in order to satisfy the debt. However this arrangement could not be finalised as a search at the Land Office Kuantan revealed that a Registrar's caveat had been registered against the charged land on the ground that the chargor had not paid her income tax. The solicitors for the applicant then wrote to the Jabatan Hasil Dalam Negeri Kuantan requesting for the removal of the Registrar's caveat. The Jabatan Hasil Dalam Negeri Kuantan refused to entertain the request. However it was prepared to reconsider it if the applicant could provide a proposal in settlement of the taxes amounting to RM71,520.74 owing by the chargor. The applicant maintained inter alia that the entry of the Registrar's caveat and the refusal to cancel it were improper in law.

I dismissed the application with cost on 23 April 1990 on the following grounds. In my view this application should have been before this Court by way of an appeal under s. 418 of the National Land Code. The wording of the said section is clear and unambiguous in that the Legislature has laid down one and only one mode of procedure by which an aggrieved party may obtain redress before the High Court. Subsection (1) of s. 418 states that:

(1) Any person or body aggrieved by any decision under this Act of the State Director, the Registrar or any Land Administrator may, at any time within the period of three months beginning with the date on which it was communicated to him, appeal therefrom to the High Court.

(Emphasis is mine).

The phrase "aggrieved by any decision under this Act of ... may ... appeal" must necessarily mean that for any person who is not happy with the decision of any of the three officials namely the State Director, the Registrar or any Land Administrator on any matter under the code his only recourse for redress is by way of appeal to the High Court and that he has only three months "beginning with the date on which it (the decision) was communicated to him within which to file his appeal. "Raja Azlan Shah, Ag. LP as he then was when delivering the judgment of the Federal Court in the case of Land Executive Committee of Federal Territory v. Syarikat Harper Gilfillan Berhad [1981] 1 MLJ 234 at 237 said:

If the relevant authority commits an error in the interpretation of the section then an aggrieved party has a right of appeal to the High Court under s. 418 of this Code. Parliament has on the good ground of public policy found that, that is a just and necessary right. In this same section Parliament has also enacted a special procedure of enforcing that right ...

Reading s. 418 of the Code, we are satisfied that the latter is the correct interpretation. Having regard to the special provision for limiting the time within which to enforce the right, the indications are that Parliament has by using plain and unambiguous language intended the right to be exclusive of any other mode of enforcing it. The time-limit is the foundation of the right given in the section. It is in the highest degree improbable that the period of three months as a limitation would have been inserted if an indefinite period were intended to be given. The period of three months is obviously for the purpose of preventing stale claims. If the contrary is sustainable, then the respondents are al