PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Kota Bharu Municipal Council's (MPKB) tyre clamping law is invalid as it goes against the Road Transport Act 1987.
This ruling means that the municipal council can only issue summons and not clamp vehicles parked within a parking box for whatever reasons.
The clamping prohibition however does not apply to vehicles parked outside the parking box, or parked illegally and endangering others.
This unanimous ruling was decided by Court of Appeal Judges Datuk Hashim Hamzah, Datuk Abdul Karim Jalil and Datuk Supang Lian at a hearing this morning.
This case was brought to light when the appellant, Nursyafawati Kasim, 33, filed a civil lawsuit against MPKB in 2019.
The law firm's accounting clerk filed the lawsuit after finding MPKB officers had clamped her car for failure to top up her parking charges.
The incident happened on July 25, 2019 and she filed a suit against the council after that.
Nursyafawati had argued that her car was clamped due to unpaid parking fees and the council only unclamped the vehicle after she was forced to pay RM110 - RM100 to open the clamp and RM10 compound.
MPKB also insisted that she settle arrears of RM760 for parking offences.
She filed the lawsuit alleging MPKB and its officers had abused their power by acting wrongly when they clamped her car.
However, the Kota Bharu High Court subsequently ruled that it was okay for MPKB to clamp cars parked inside the parking box.
Nursyafawati appealed the decision and a three-member panel of judges today overturned the Kota Bharu court decision.
The judges also ordered MPKB to pay Nursyafawati RM5,000 in costs.
The appellant was represented by lawyers Hisham Fauzi, Ang Khai Wei, Majdah Muhammad and Haziratul Aqilah Huzailing while MPKB was represented by lawyers Marwalis Adam and Shaharuddin Mohamed.