The Court of Appeal today fixed Nov 20 to hear the merits of widow A Santamil Selvi's appeal against carpet businessman Deepak Jaikishan.

This comes after the appellate court allowed Deepak's application to set aside the Oct 2 decision by the same panel that recorded the consent order, after the businessman conceded to allowing the hearing of the suit against him.

Justice Vernon Ong in his decision said the Oct 2 consent had effectively reversed the High Court order.

"The court (here) will not declare that the High Court order is‎ wrong. Accordingly, we grant (Deepak's) prayers and the case will be heard on its merits on that date," Justice Ong said.

The other judges were Justices Abdul Rahman Sebli and Zamani A Rahim.

The decision today meant that Santamil's suit is not reinstated as was initially ordered on Oct 2.

Santamil ( photo ), the widow of the late private investigator P Balasubramaniam, and her three children filed a RM1.9 million suit that named Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor as among eight defendants.

She had also named Najib's younger brothers Johari and Nazim, lawyers Cecil Abraham and his son Sunil Abraham, lawyer M Arunampalam and Commissioner of Oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat as the other defendants.

But her suit was struck out based on the High Court finding that Santamil has no locus standi (legal standing) to file the suit as she is not recognised as the person managing her husband's estate.

At the start of today's proceeding, Santamil's lawyer Americk Singh said he was perplexed and puzzled with the manner the date of today's hearing was fixed following a letter issued by the firm of senior lawyer Cecil Abraham, dated Oct 5, to Court of Appeal president ‎Justice Md Raus Sharif.

Americk said case management was fixed on Oct 15, despite the papers to Deepak's application not having been filed.

"I received a letter from the registrar of the Court of Appeal on Oct 19, stating that Deepak had filed the application.

"However, Deepak's lawyers only filed their application the next day. How could the registrar know the papers will be filed and what would happen if it was not filed," Americk ( photo ) asked over the strange manner the in which the case was fixed.

Shahrir‎ Abdul Razak, who appeared for Deepak, said it was not unusual for urgent hearings to be heard earlier.

Despite Americk's objection on the matter, the three-member bench allowed the hearing of Deepak's application and made the decision today.

Bar Council present too

The unusual manner in which Abraham's letter was sent was reported on Wednesday, where he had cited that he had to bring up the matter as an officer of the court, resulting in the fixing of the date of Deepak's application today.

Abraham and his son Sunil are allegedly implicated in drawing up the second statutory declaration of the late Balasubramaniam.

As a result of this, Abraham is now being subject to a disciplinary hearing before the Advocates and Solicitors Disciplinary Board.

Balasubramaniam, also known as PI (private investigator) Bala, was hired by political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda to monitor Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Bala was among the last persons to see Altantuya alive after he intercepted her at Abdul Razak's home and handed her over to policemen Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar.

In his first statutory declaration,on July 8, 2008, Bala claimed Najib knew and had an affair with Altantuya but this claim was subsequently withdrawn in the second SD he made.

Najib has denied knowing Altantuya.

Bala and his family went in exile after the release of the second SD and they returned to the country five years later, in 2013. He died of a heart attack months later.

Unlike the Oct 2 proceedings, today's proceedings were observed by lawyers representing Najib, Rosmah, Abraham (photo), the Najib brothers and others, along with the Bar Council which is following the complaint over the perplexity of the letter from Abraham's firm.