The Kuala Lumpur High Court judge appointed to hear the RM471 million suit between Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor and the Selangor government recused himself from hearing the case.

Justice Anantham Kasinater made the announcement in his chambers today when the matter came up for case management.

Neither party had made any application for Justice Anantham to disqualify himself.

Following this development, the matter was fixed for case management before Justice Hamid Sultan Abu Backer on April 11.

The Selangor government was represented by Fahda Nur Ahmad Kamar, while senior lawyer Harpal Singh appeared for Syabas.

Syabas filed the suit against the Selangor government last November, seeking a declaration that based on the actual assessment of its concession agreement dated Dec 15, 2004, the Selangor government owed it RM471,642,916 for the period between Jan 1 and Dec 31, 2009.

It is also seeking an immediate payment of the amount from the Selangor government in the summons was filed at the High Court registry in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 10, through the law firm of M/s Soo Thien Ming.

However, the Selangor government claimed the suit was filed in bad faith and is an abuse of the court process.

In his affidavit-in-reply, former Selangor state secretary Ramli Mahmud said the state opposed any hike in the prevailing gazetted tariffs by Syabas as the company failed to fulfil the concession agreement, including reducing the non-revenue water at the agreed rate.

Syabas has also claimed that under the Dec 15, 2004 agreement between the Malaysian government and the Selangor government, it was given a 30-year concession to buy treated water from water treatment operators and to supply the treated water to the distribution areas in accordance with the terms spelt out in the agreement.

Syabas wants to increase the tariff but this is being withheld by the Selangor Pakatan government.