Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia has been ordered by the Federal Court to pay RM1,000 costs to former Perak menteri besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin’s lawyers.

This follows Utusan ’s lawyer Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin not informing Nizar’s lawyers and Sistem Televisyen (M) Bhd ( TV3 ) over not being able to attend today’s proceedings where the daily had been ordered to pay RM250,000 to Nizar.

Lawyer Choo Shi Jin for Utusan informed the court that Firoz has an ear infection and is on medical leave for three days, and that he will only be able to furnish the certificate tomorrow.

Following this, Nizar’s lawyers Mohd Zamri Ibrahim and Fitri Asmuni applied for RM2,000 costs for the postponement, as parties were not informed earlier.

However, the five-member bench led by Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria ( left ) allowed costs at RM1,000 to be paid by the daily.

The other judges on the panel were Court of Appeal president Justice Md Raus Sharif and Federal Court judges Abdull Hamid Embong, Abu Samah Nordin and Azahar Mohamed.

Justice Arifin then fixed Jan 27 to hear Utusan ’s and TV3 's application on leave (permission) to appeal.

Utusan has been ordered to pay RM250,000 by the Kuala Lumpur High Court for defaming Nizar over the WWW1 licence plate issue after it ruled that the reporter who did the story had failed to verify the tweet with the former Perak MB.

The decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal and ordered the Umno-owned daily to pay.

For TV3 , it initially won its case but the Court of Appeal unanimously overturned the decision when it ruled that the television station was malicious in its report and failed to prove justification.

Both cases have been ordered by the apex court to be run on the same day as it involves the same issue of the tweet from Nizar ( right ).

Utusan has applied that both Nizar's suit against Utusan and TV3 be consolidated together, but the earlier panel chaired by Federal Court judge Justice Suriyadi Halim Omar had on Aug 6 decided against consolidating it.

Judge Suriyadi then ordered both cases to be held on the same day.

This was to ensure a consistency in the ruling, the apex court ruled then.

TV3 alleging bias

Following the absence of Firoz Hussein today, both applications by the daily and TV3 for leave could not be heard today.

Despite this, Fitri informed Malaysiakini that they want the assessment of damages on TV3 before a deputy registrar, which is scheduled tomorrow, to go on.

TV3 , in appealing the Court of Appeal's decision, had cited the possibility of bias in the judgment.

This was because the judge Justice Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof - chairing the panel - was a PAS member who had contested in the 2004 general election under the Islamist party ticket.

However, in the unanimous decision by the Court of Appeal, Justice Ariff did not write the judgment, but Justice David Wong Dak Wah and Justice Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim in the same panel were the ones who wrote separate judgments in the unanimous decision.

TV3 's lawyer TH Liew had applied for a review of the Court of Appeal decision following this, but this was turned down by a different panel of the Appellate Court led by Justice Md Raus.

Justice Md Raus ruled on the grounds that the television station cannot launch a two pronged approach, when they are also appealing at the Federal Court.