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Petition to Modify the Native Reserve of Malapoa [1962] VUNHJC 5 (12 December 1962)

JOINT COURT OF THE NEW HEBRIDES

PETITION

To His Honour the President of the Joint Court of the New Hebrides.

Mr René PUJOL, Native Advocate living at Vila, acting under the attached authority from Their Honours the Resident Commissioners, has the honour to state:-

That by its Judgment No. 57 of 24th January 1930 the Joint Court granted, to the benefit of the natives of Vila, a Reserve registered under the name of "Vila-Malapoa Native Reserve" Title 57G_;

That as a result of the straightening of the public road from Vila to Mele and the construction of a permanent bridge over the Tagabe River, the Public Works Department was obliged to encroach on this Reserve with moreover the prior consent of the natives.

That it is now necessary to regularise the new situation by a Decision of the Join Court;

That the amount of compensation to be paid to the natives by the Joint Administration has been, in principle, settled amicably under the terms of an agreement signed by the native users of the expropriated land and the owners of the destroyed coconut trees, the original being annexed hereto;

That under this agreement the compensation to be paid by the Joint Administration to the natives amounts to:

Your Petitioner therefore prays that it may please the Court:

To declare:

That the Vila-Malapoa Native Reserve Title No. 57G, as defined in Judgment No. 57 of the 24th January 1930, is reduced in area by seventeen ares eighteen contiares ten square decimetres (17a. 18 ca. 10 dm2) such area having been taken from the said Reserve by the Joint Administration for the purpose of building a portion of the Vila to Mélé public road such as is edged red on the plan annexed hereto and according to the attached description of boundaries;

That under the terms of the Agreement dated 11th July 1960 the Joint Administration is required to pay to KALSARAM and LEIKAVE widow of KALPUASO, the sum of Seventy five Pounds Australian for the expropriated land and Forty Pounds Australian for the destroyed coconut trees.

Finally to order that Title No. 57G, "Vila-Malapoa Native Reserve" be modified at the Land Titles Registry in the foregoing terms.

Presented at Vila the 12th day of December 1962.