The cases amounted to combined 24.08 acres, involving plots in Klang, Kuala Selangor and Sabak Bernam.

“The award of the land came after the year of Malay reserve land gazettement. This had reduced the Malays’ interest in the reservation land and the area that can be awarded to the Malays,” said the report.

Of the cases, 11 were detected in Klang, while five occurred in Kuala Selangor and two in Sabak Bernam.

Two of the 129 cases also involved transfers of ownership from Malays to non-Malays, one in Kuala Selangor and Sabak Bernam respectively.

According to the report, a 4.94-acre plot in Kuala Selangor, which was awarded in 1903 and gazetted as reserve land in 1924, was transferred to a non-Malay owner in 1962.

Meanwhile, the 5-acre plot in Sabak Bernam was awarded to a Malay in 1923 and was gazetted in 1928, before the ownership was transferred to a non-Malay in 1937.

Section 7 of the Malay Reservations Enactment (Federated States) 1935 bars the disposal of reserve land to non-Malay owners.

Section 8 of the same enactment also prohibits transfer of ownership to non-Malays.

The Kuala Selangor District and Land Office (PDT) has since explained to the A-G that the land awarded to non-Malays were originally owned by the same ethnic group.

Meanwhile, the Klang PDT claimed that its recommendations were not heeded during the award, leading the plots to be awarded to non-Malays.

The same report also revealed that between November 2013 and January 2014, 3,960 out of 10,265 acres (38.6 per cent) of Malay reserve land had their status revoked, but was never replaced.

Article 89 of the Federal Constitution states that any land that was a Malay reserve before Merdeka may continue as a Malay reservation.

The power to gazette land as Malay reserve lies with the mentri besar, on the advice of the state rulers.

As of February 2014, there were 395,946 acres of Malay reservation land in Selangor, or 20.2 per cent of the total 2 million acres of land in the state.

Sabak Bernam, a mostly rice-growing area in the northernmost part of Selangor, has the most acreage in Malay reserve land, with a total 172,484 acres.