PETALING JAYA: The Shah Alam High Court will make a decision on the Selangor government’s degazettement of a piece of land at the Bukit Cherakah forest reserve on Nov 17.
Justice Shahnaz Sulaiman today also granted two environmental NGOs an extension to an interim stay order against the degazettement. The stay order, which was to end today after a previous extension, has been extended to Nov 17.
“This means that no work can be conducted at Bukit Cherakah until Nov 17,” said Rajesh Nagarajan, one of the lawyers representing the NGOs.
Last month, Lim Teck Wyn and Damien Thaman Divean – representing Shah Alam Community Forest Society and Khazanah Alam Malaysia respectively – applied to the High Court for leave to commence judicial review proceedings in a bid to protect the forest reserve from being degazetted and levelled for development.
The NGOs are seeking to challenge the legality of the degazettement of 406ha, roughly the size of 1,000 football fields, in the reserve.
In a previous affidavit, Damien said the land had been alienated and development work had commenced on portions of the land that had been parcelled out to various state-owned and private entities.
Rajesh told FMT that the court also ordered the respondents – the Selangor government, its executive councillors, and the directors of the state forestry department and the Petaling land and mines department – to make additional submissions in relation to the retrospective degazettement of Bukit Cerakah by Oct 26.
The two NGOs would then have until Oct 30 to provide a response to the submissions, he said. - FMT
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