Wan Suleiman F.J

(delivering the judgment of the Court): The applicants, who were the plaintiffs in the court below are applying for conditional leave to appeal to His Majesty the Yang di-Pertuan Agong against the whole of the decision of this court given on October 21, 1980 dismissing the applicants' appeal against the order of the High Court.

The applicants had applied for an area of approximately 3280 acres of state land for agricultural purposes in 1960 from the then Government of the Colony of North Borneo. They alleged that an area of about 3300 acres was earmarked for their application which was registered as Lahad Datu Land Application No. 238/60. They were allowed initially to enter into an area of 851 acres, for which title was subsequently issued to them, with certain conditions for development. According to applicants, Government had promised to allow them to enter and occupy another 1312 acres of state land, as a second stage, if they fulfilled the conditions imposed on them under the first stage. They carried out the development of the 851 acres of land in accordance with the conditions imposed and made preparations at great cost to enter the second stage but, in spite of various requests made between 1964 and 1969, the respondent failed to give them the necessary approval. Finally, on March 26, 1971, they were informed that "their application for additional area" did not have the approval of the Ketua Menteri.

There the matter rested for quite a while. What apparently prompted the applicants to file the writ were the several notices of demand for arrears of quit rent by the Assistant Collector of Land Revenue and threats to auction the land. The last of these demands was made on November 25, 1978.

The respondent had filed a summons in the court below under Order 25 rule 4 to have the action dismissed inter alia on the ground that it is time-barred. In reply, the applicants/plaintiffs by affidavit contended that the Limitation Ordinance does not apply because they became aware that they could sue the present State Government only in 1977, and also because the agent of the respondent Government had as late as November 25, 1978 demanded payment of quit rent. The learned judge held that these are not facts which would make the Limitation Ordinance inapplicable to the action.

Accordingly he held that the action was statute-barred and dismissed applicants/plaintiffs' claim with costs, a decision later affirmed by this court.

Commencing with the decision of this court in Ratnam v Cumarasamy & Anor [1962] MLJ 330 the test applied by Lord Alverstone C.J. in Bozson v Altrincham Urban District Council [1903] 1 KB 547, now known as the Bozson test has been preferred by our courts to that applied in Salaman v Warner [1891] 1 QB 734 (the Salaman test). Put briefly the Bozson test is: Does the judgment or order, as made, finally dispose of the rights of the parties? If it does, then it ought to be treated as a final order, but if it does not, then it is an interlocutory order.

We can envisage nothing which disposes of the rights of the parties with more finality than a finding that an action is time-barred.

In passing we note that Mr. Stephen Foo for the respondent expressed concern about the continuing controversy between proponents of Bozson and Salaman in England, a state of affairs specifically referred to by their Lordships of the Privy Council in Tampion v Anderson [1974] 48 ALJR 11, 12. In the later decision their Lordships adopted the suggestion of Lord Denning M.R. in Salter Rex Co v Ghosh [1971] 2 QB 597, 601 where he said,

"This question of final or interlocutory is so uncertain that the only thing for practitioners to do is to look up the practice books and see what has been decided on the point. Most orders have now been the subject of decisions."

Mr. Foo thinks that we should look up the precedents to be found in the practice books rather than apply either test.

The same argument was urged before this court in Ce