Act quickly: Lessons from the Semantan Estate decision

More than six decades after government surveyors first nailed acquisition notices to rubber trees at Ladang Batu, the Court of Appeal has tried to bring the Semantan Estate saga to a close. Its broad grounds handed down on June 24, 2025, read like a cautionary epic: they track a 1956 compulsory acquisition that paid RM5,282 an acre, a string of land references and writs that fizzled and a final reckoning over whether possession or compensation is the only lawful remedy.

The story begins before Merdeka, when Gazette Notification 401 of July 26, 1956, authorised the Selangor government to take some 250 acres for a “diplomatic enclave.”