The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled in favour of Thamarai Holdings Sdn Bhd in the Kampung Gatco issue.

According to Tamil Malar, a three-member bench comprising Justices Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, Zabariah Mohd Yusof, and Suraya Othman, unanimously dismissed the appeal by the Kampung Gatco settlers, with costs.

With this ruling, the High Court's stay order, barring the developers from gaining access to the land and conducting land clearing, comes to an end.

However, lawyer R Kenghadharan who represented the settlers told the Tamil daily that the fight is not over, and they would be appealing against the decision at the Federal Court.

The issue came under scrutiny by the MACC recently, which saw the anti-graft body making several arrests, including that of two "Datuk" brothers, who are chief executives of two companies in a family-run business group, connected to the land deal.

The other two arrests were that of a 54-year-old former bank officer and a 68-year-old liquidator, who had detailed knowledge of the deal.

The settlers of Kampung Gatco, which has since been renamed Kampung Serampang Indah, are involved in a legal tussle with oil palm and rubber plantation company Thamarai Holdings Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of the Lotus Group, over the land in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan.

They were part of the Great Alonioners Trading Corporation Bhd (Gatco), which was incorporated in 1977 by the NUPW to facilitate a land development scheme for NUPW members in Bahau.

A total of 430 families took part in the scheme, comprising 200 Indians, 120 Malays and 30 Chinese and the current settlers had paid RM7,600 each as a deposit to settle on allocated plots of land as part of the development scheme.

However, the scheme failed.

Gatco eventually wound up and its liquidators sold the land to Thamarai Holdings in 2006, triggering the present tussle.

The tug-of-war between the developers and settlers has seen arrests of many of them, as well as that of politicians and NGO members who intervened to champion the settlers' rights.