After waiting almost a month for the written judgment, defence contracting firm Langkawi R&D Sdn Bhd (Lardac) has filed its appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s dismissal of its suit.

The notice of appeal was filed today by the firm’s lawyer M Manogaran at the Court of Appeal.

On July 9, Court of Appeal judge Justice Abdul Wahab Patail had dismissed Lardac’s application and ordered the company to pay costs of RM20,000, without providing any grounds.

Justice Abdul Wahab, who sat as a High Court judge in hearing the case, had in his decision given an assurance that grounds would be provided within a week.

NONE However, checks with Lardac’s lawyer Manogaran and founder Mohamad Abdullah confirmed they have yet to receive it.

An appellant has one month to file an appeal at the Court of Appeal.

Just last week, Chief Justice Zaki Azmi had encouraged judges to avoid writing long-winded judgments and instead produce short and precise grounds of judgments to help reduce the backlog of cases.

In its suit, Lardac had named the defence minister, the Defence Ministry secretary-general and the government as defendents in the RM480 million suit over breach of the contract to undertake avionics upgrading and refurbishment works invloving 10 Royal Malaysia Air Force Norththrop F5-E&F fighter jets.

 

Lardac’s assertion was that the ministry had gone through the back door to allow its former partner, British-based Caledonian Airborne Systems Ltd (CAS Ltd), to take over the upgrading works, despite having awarded Lardac the contract on Oct 11, 2001.

It also claimed that CAS Ltd does not have a specific contract to operate with the Malaysian government, and that no show-cause letter was given to Lardac as required before the government terminated the contract in late 2002.

The July 9 decision came without witness testimony despite the fact that they, including the ministry's former secretary-general Hashim Meon, had been willing to testify for Lardac.