The hearing for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s bid to strike out his predecessor Mahathir Mohammad’s malfeasance suit against him has been postponed until Feb 20 next year.

The application was originally slated to be heard at the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.

However, Mahathir’s lawyer Mohd Haniff Khatri Abdulla said the court has agreed to postpone it to allow the plaintiffs to prepare additional arguments for their case.

“The court is prepared to hear the application (to strike out the suit). However due to unavoidable circumstances and at our request - since there are issues in the affidavit-in-reply that we believe are additional legal issues - we have made the written application (for postponement) this morning after receiving it last Friday,” he said.

Haniff (photo) was speaking to reporters outside the courtroom this afternoon, after meeting the presiding judge Abu Bakar Jais in his chambers.

Apart from Mahathir, the other plaintiffs for the case are Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) women’s wing chief Anina Saadudin and former Bersatu member Khairuddin Abu Hassan.

The trio had filed the RM2.642 billion suit at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on March 23, naming Najib as the sole defendant.

They accused Najib of malfeasance in public office and breach of fiduciary duty. They claimed that as prime minister and ‘numero uno’ of Malaysia, Najib had acted in bad faith to undermine or compromise the institutions involved in the investigation of the 1MDB scandal.

They had also filed an application for a mareva injuction to freeze RM2.642 billion of Najib’s assets on April 21.

Najib had filed an application to strike out the lawsuit on April 20.