The Federal Court today restored the High Court decision which had struck out a lawsuit filed against MIC president Dr S Subramaniam and seven others.

The decision was made by the five-man panel led by Court of Appeal president Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin after the court was informed that the respondents in the lawsuit were not pursuing their legal action in the High Court and were not opposing the appeal.

Lawyer V Manokaran representing the three respondents – former MIC strategic director K Ramalingam, Henry Benedict Asirvatham and MV Rajoo – informed the court that his clients did not wish to pursue the suit at the High Court and that they conceded to the appeal.

Lawyer Gopal Sri Ram representing Subramaniam also requested for the court to allow the appeal since the three respondents were not pursuing their legal action.

Zulkefli subsequently ordered the decision of the High Court to be restored and the order of the appellate court be set aside.

The other judges were Federal Court judges Hasan Lah, Ramly Ali, Zaharah Ibrahim and Alizatul Khair Osman Khairuddin.

Besides Subramaniam, the other seven appellants are the Registrar of Societies Malaysia director-general Mohamad Razin Abdullah, ROS officer Akmal Yahya, S Vigneswaran, Jaspal Singh, T Mohan, A Sakthivel, and lawyer V Vasanthi.

Ramalingam and seven others had on Feb 5, 2016, filed the suit against Subramaniam and seven others over an alleged conspiracy to topple former MIC president G Palanivel in 2015.

On July 11, 2016, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur allowed Subramaniam and the seven others to strike out the suit prompting the respondents to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal, which had on Jan 10, this year ruled in favour of Ramalingam and the other respondents, reversing the High Court decision and ordered the matter to go for a full trial.

However, another panel of the Federal Court previous panel in May this year struck out five of the respondents as parties to the suit – V Ganesh, M Sathiyamurthi, George Alexander Fernandez, RM Prabu and R Sithambaram Pillay – after they applied to discontinue the action.

That same Federal Court panel led by chief justice Md Raus Sharif had also granted Subramaniam and the seven others leave to appeal against the appellate court’s decision.

The court was supposed to hear the appeal today.

Senior federal counsel Amarjeet Singh represented Mohamad Razin and Akmal, while lawyer Ho Hon Keong appeared for Jaspal Singh, Mohan and Sakthivel and lawyer Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin for Vigneswaran and Vasanthi.

Meanwhile, Subramaniam in a press statement said that he was delightful that the Federal Court has restored the decision of the High Court.

“It is a great day as the Court of Appeal decision has been reversed. Our legal counsels felt that despite the eight plaintiffs withdrawing, there was a need for the issue to be addressed at the level of the Federal Court.

“It was a real and serious concern as the Court of Appeal decision could have serious consequences on political parties and government in the future,” he said.

- Bernama