It is unconventional for the Finance Ministry to return the RM741 million deposit paid for the Bandar Malaysia land, if it insists that the payment deal was breached, said Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua.

Project owner TRX City Sdn Bhd said it cancelled the contract with the Iskandar Waterfront Holdings-China Railway Engineering Corporation (IWH-CREC) consortium because it did not meet the payment obligations.

TRX City Sdn Bhd belongs to the Finance Ministry, which in March took over the land it had sold to 1MDB for a sweetheart price of RM1.6 billion in 2010.

"The question is, if the contract with IWH has been cancelled, who will reimburse the deposit? Not 1MDB but the Finance Ministry.

"But this is strange. The Finance Ministry said the contract was cancelled because IWH did not fulfil its contractual obligations.

"In conventional contracts, if a contract is breached, the deposit is forfeited. So why should the deposit be reimbursed? They (IWH) did something wrong but we have to repay the deposit?" Pua asked...