KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 — The High Court will decide next month whether MRT Corp will be included in a lawsuit challenging the government’s acquisition of the city’s iconic Ampang Park mall for the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) rail project.

Jason Ng Kau, who represents 39 owners of strata titles in the mall that had filed the lawsuit, said MRT Corp had on February 29 applied to be intervener or to be part of the judicial review hearing.

He said the High Court has fixed March 17 and March 31 respectively for the applicants to file their affidavit opposing MRT Corp’s intervener bid and for the firm’s reply, while April 11 will be the date for his clients, MRT Corp and the government’s lawyers to file in their documents.

“And on 18th of April, the High Court will make a decision whether to allow MRT (Corp) to come in as intervener or respondent,” the lawyer told Malay Mail Online when contacted today.

Ng said Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Datuk Hanipah Farikullah today extended the stay order previously granted in his clients’ favour to April 18.

“So thereafter on April 18, once the court makes the decision, we will proceed to another stage to hear the stay order, whether the stay order will be further extended,” he said.

On January 20, the Kuala Lumpur High Court granted leave to the 39 applicants for their judicial review application against the government’s move to acquire the mall.

It had also issued two interim stay orders blocking the government from awarding compensation to Ampang Park mall owners and from taking possession of the property, which effectively stops the compulsory land acquisition process from going on.

Ng had then said that his clients are not against the government or the MRT rail project, but merely wanted the government to not demolish the Ampang Park shopping centre.

On January 8, the 39 strata title owners filed for judicial review of the government’s nod for the acquisition of Ampang Park mall for an underground passage between the planned MRT station and the existing Ampang Park LRT station.

They want the courts to declare the government’s acquisition decision as illegal and unconstitutional, and also asked for the courts to quash any further land acquisition proceedings.

Ng confirmed today that his clients have since agreed to remove the Federal Government and the Federal Territories Ministry from the lawsuit, with the two remaining respondents to the judicial review currently being the Federal Territories director of Lands and Mines Office and the Federal Territories Land Administrator.