The group of 11,500 Petaling Jaya residents seeking a court declaration that the controversial PJ1 local plan draft is illegal, are claiming that the Petaling land office had misused their personal information to force them to surrender their land leases.

In an affidavit in reply filed at the Shah Alam High Court registry yesterday, Section 5 resident Jayapalan Mahesan said leaseholders had signed the application forms for their lease extension believing that the land office will approve it.

"Unfortunately, all the information provided by the residents in the application form were used by the land office to force them to surrender their leases."

While approval for renewal is usually automatic, in this case, residents are being asked to surrender the lease and pay a premium first before the land is leased back to them.

Last month, Jayapalan, representing the group of residents, filed the suit against the PJ Municipal Council (MPPJ) president Emran Kadir, claiming that the draft plan did not conform with the Petaling and Part of Klang District Structure Plan gazetted in 1996.

They claimed that the structure plan specifically stated that PJ was to remain a residential area, and had designated certain areas for commercial, industrial activities and continued development.

However, the controversial draft plan announced in late March for public feedback, seeks to change the landscape, population density and physical infrastructure of PJ. Running from 1997 to 2010, it aims to turn the satellite township into a bustling city.

The residents, in the affidavit, cited a report in The Sun newspaper which claimed that the draft plan was based on some "confusion".

"The defendant (Emran) had, prior to this, openly said that the draft plan was based on a comprehensive study and statistics obtained from Universiti Malaya undergraduates.

"When residents asked for the study, he refused to entertain their requests," he said, adding that the information was eventually obtained after a detailed investigation.

More questions now

When contacted today, Jayapalan said that based on the news report, the whole basis of the draft plan remains in question.

"All they had to do was to come out clean and be honest about it. There are more questions now, and this has somewhat confirmed our fears about the secrecy surrounding the draft plan."

In the affidavit, the residents claimed that the "uncomfortable situation" between ratepayers and Emran was due to his failure to comply with proper implementation procedures and avoidance of legitimate queries.

"Based on the fact that Emran is capable of gazetting the draft plan under the Town and Country Planning Act 1976, we are forced to seek the court's protection for fear that our properties will be involuntarily acquired.

"It is difficult for us to believe and follow Emran's advice or his representatives because we have always been given contradicting or confusing information."

The residents said the matter can be resolved if they are given lease extensions in addition to the withdrawal of all other actions, including the surrender of leases, realienation of land and the hefty premium payments.

The case is up for mention tomorrow at the Shah Alam High Court, subject to the outcome of Emran's application to strike out the suit, also scheduled to be heard tomorrow.