JUDGMENT

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 1982 and served on the defendant on 19th day September 1982 and which expired on the 18th day of December 1982.

All the respondents filed identical defences. In essence, the respondents aver that they had been cultivating the said land on the undertaking of the appellant that the respondents would be allowed to do so for life. The respondents also aver that the appellant's notice to quit is bad in law and invalid.

That was the state of the pleadings between the parties when on 6 August 1985, Cameron Highlands Magistrate's Court Civil Summons No. 14 of 1983 (hereafter MC14/83) between the appellant and one Cho Chew came on for trial. During the course of that trial, the learned magistrate (who was actually the President of the Sessions Court, Ipoh, but sitting as a magistrate) recorded what transpired between counsel for the appellant and counsel for Cho Chew who also represented the 16 respondents in this appeal. A dispute has now arisen on one crucial word recorded by the learned magistrate. Without at this stage trying to resolve that dispute, I will simply set out the passage recorded by the magistrate and indicate the disputed word in italics. This is how it reads:

argue Mr. Hoh agrees (italics mine) with Thevindran and vice versa that the decision in this case will be binding on all the other thirteen Civil Actions No. 4/83, 5/83, 7/83, 8/83, 9/83, 10/83, 11/83, 13/83, 16/83, 19/83, 22/83, 23/83, 24/83 as the plaintiff will be asked the same question and will give the same evidence in all the other 13 above actions, and as the plaintiff is the same in all the actions and also as all the defendants in the 14 actions occupy the same Lease Negeri Lot 44 Mukim of Ulu Telom.

The respondents say that the word "agrees" quoted above is the word appearing in the handwritten notes of proceedings of the learned magistrate and that accordingly, the decision in MC 14/83 is binding on all the 13 other cases mentioned in the notes. The appellant on the other hand says "argue" is correct as this is the word that appears in the certified copy of the typed notes of proceedings in MC 14/83.

After having heard all the evidence adduced by both the appellant and Cho Chew, the learned magistrate dismissed the appellant's claim and give his full reasons for doing so in a written judgment on 21 November 1985.

Some ten years after the decision in MC 14/83, the appellant on 26 September 1995, filed at the Magistrate's Court Cameron Highlands, applications to amend the statements of claim in their 16 suits. By their proposed amendments which are in identical terms, the appellant:

(i) alleges that they became owners of the land since 4 October 1976;

(ii) deletes the whole of their assertion that the said land was let by the appellant to the respondents by an oral agree