A college administrator today lost her RM20 million suit against a telecommunication company (telco) for allegedly revealing contents of her “juicy” SMS exchanges and recordings of her

teleconversations with other individuals.

High Court Judicial Commissioner Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera dismissed Noor Haslina Abdullah’s suit with costs of RM50,000. He made the decision in chambers.

On Aug 29, 2010, Noor Haslina, 41, a chief executive officer of a private college in Kuala Terengganu, filed two suits against Celcom Axiata Berhad (formely known as Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad) for breach of privacy, confidence, contract and negligence.

Counsels KP Lim and Melissa Shukri represented Noor Haslina while Rishwant Singh and M Ghandi Mohan acted for Celcom.

Rishwant told reporters that the judge dismissed the woman’s suit as she failed to prove that the telco had revealed her private SMSes and phone recordings.

The telco also filed a counter-claim against the plaintiff (Noor Haslina) for abuse of process seeking damages, and the court allowed the counter-claim and ordered the damages to be assessed by a registrar later, said Rishwant.

He said the judge made the ruling after a full hearing involving seven witnesses for the plaintiff and two witnesses from the defendant.

Noor Haslina filed the suit relating to contents of her SMS exhanges and recordings of her telephone conversations.

In her statement of claim, she said that on March 11, 2010, when she arrived at her office, she received an envelope containing nine A4-size papers with information about her SMS exchanges and a ‘Kingston Data Traveller 4GB’ pendrive that had recordings of her telephone conversations.

Report lodged three days later

She said that she lodged a police report on the matter three days later, and had sought relief from the telco, but was ignored.

Noor Haslina said that she suffered hurt of feelings, trauma and mental stress after the contents of the SMSes were revealed and circulated to the public.

She is seeking damages totalling RM20 million and other relief deemed fit by the court.

Celcom, in its statement of defence, had denied that the alleged envelope contained any document belonging to it and also denied that it was responsible for the issuance of any information belonging to the plantiff, whether personal or confidential.

The telco in its counter-claim contended that the suit was filed by the plaintiff in order to damage the reputation and goodwill of the defendant.

- Bernama