An ex-Bar president has accused the 11,000-strong body's presiding head of canvassing against "certain candidates" during the council election late last year.

Manjeet Singh Dhillon said Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari has not denied nor refuted the allegation.

"He has instead admitted doing so (collecting the ballot papers)," he said in his affidavit filed in Kuala Lumpur High Court yesterday. It was filed as a part of his action against the Bar Council to declare the election held last November as illegal.

He is claiming that the election was unlawful as the postal ballot rules set out in the Legal Profession Act (LPA) was breached by Kuthubul.

The copy of the affidavit was made available to malaysiakini today.

Questionable leadership

In the affidavit, Manjeet said the negative campaigning and collection of ballot papers would have taken place between Nov 1 and Nov 30 when the papers were sent to lawyers to vote for their choice of candidates vying for the 2004/2005 Bar Council posts.

Kuthubul came under fire following allegations of electoral discrepancies and mismanagement of Bar Council affairs which surfaced a few weeks ago.

He also questioned Manjeet's timing for raising the issue.

The latter said since Kuthubul's action and admission were only disclosed for the first time during the Jan 10 council meeting, it rendered his leadership questionable.

Based on the extracts of the meeting minutes, Manjeet said in his affidavit that Johor Bar committee chairperson Gana Muthusamy had quoted "reliable sources" in claiming that Kuthubul had canvassed against "Manjeet ... and one other person to get them out of the council".

"Kuthubul was a person interested in the outcome of the Bar Council elections since he is both the current president, a member of the 2003/2004 council and will be on the 2004/2005 (line-up by default)," said Manjeet.

He expects Kuthubul to seek re-election for another term.

Allegations denied

Manjeet's affidavit says that according to Gana, the Bar president admitted collecting the ballot papers from the Johor Bar members for delivery to the council.

He said this clearly violated the LPA which only provides for postal balloting.

While Kuthubul did admit collecting the postal ballots, he has denied all other allegations.

Manjeet has served as the council secretary between 1987-1989, as vice-president (1989-1990) and as president (1990-1991).

He was also nominated to contest one of 12 exco seats in the council for the 2004/2005 term but failed to make the cut by only managing to garner sufficient votes to be in the 14 th slot.

Conflict of interest

Apart from alleging electoral discrepancy, Manjeet claimed to have identified an "overall mismanagement" of the council's affairs, including the appointment of members on the Disciplinary Board (DB).

He accused Kuthubul of making sure that only "fellow Bar Council members" were appointed into the DB, thus raising issues of a conflict of interest and affecting the overall efficiency of the board.

At the Bar's extraordinary general meeting last October, Manjeet said he moved a motion for the council to ensure that no serving member is recommended for appointment to the DB except for the chairperson as provided under the law.

He had also called for the council members on the DB to stand down, and for the chairperson to appoint new members based on objectivity, independence, transparency and accountability and by taking into account of seniority and experience.

Manjeet has also filed a certificate of urgency seeking an early hearing date before the Bar AGM scheduled for March 20.

Kuthubul is expected to file his affidavit in reply soon to rebut the allegations made against him.