Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's application to have a summary judgment imposed against Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming will be heard on March 14 next year.

On the same day, the Kuala Lumpur High Court will also hear Nga's application to strike out the defamation suit against him filed by Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor.

The matter was fixed by judicial commissioner Siti Khadijah Syed Hasan Badjenid when it came up in chambers yesterday.

A summary judgment is the hearing of a case without the need to call for witnesses.

If the judicial commissioner decides that the matter should go to trial, then the case will be fixed for hearing from May 16 to 19 and May 23 to 26 next year.

Najib and Rosmah were represented by lawyers Shafiqa Balqish Jaffri and Choo Shi Jin, while Dennis Goh appeared for Nga ( photo ).

The prime minister and his wife had filed the defamation suit on June 11 this year, in which they claimed Nga posted a photograph of both of them purportedly at a cabinet meeting on his Facebook page on March 29.

In their defamation action against the DAP parliamentarian, the couple said that Nga, in his post, had used the photograph to illustrate that Rosmah had once participated in a cabinet meeting.

Najib and Rosmah said the photograph was of them with several cabinet ministers and high-ranking Wisma Putra officials at a hotel room on a visit to China, and not at a cabinet meeting as alleged by Nga.

The couple claimed the Taiping MP had published defamatory words against them on his Facebook page, implying Najib had abused his power and mandate as PM for his personal and wife's personal interests.