A three-member Court of Appeal bench today dismissed an appeal by controversial carpet businessman Deepak Jaikishian for a stay of the Kuala Lumpur High Court decision which is to be delivered tomorrow over his two conflicting defence statements.

The decision is for an application by lawyers for widow A Santamil Selvi and her three children to cross-examine him. Santamil is the widow of private investigator P Balasubramaniam who is linked to the murder investigation of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Today's unanimous decision was delivered by Justice Idrus Harun after the court ruled and upheld the lower court's decision that Deepak had abused the court process by not being present to be cross-examined despite the court giving him three opportunities to do so.

Justice Idrus dismissed the appeal for the stay and ordered Deepak to pay RM5,000 costs. The other judges were Justice Abdul Rahman Sebli and Justice Kaamardin Hashim.

Deepak was represented by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah while senior counsel and former Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram and Syed Iskandar Syed Jaafar Al Mahdzar appeared for Santamil.

High Court judge Justice Hue Siew Kheng had last month ruled that Deepak had abused the court process when he failed to turn up three times to be cross-examined.

Justice Hue had on Feb 6 allowed Santamil's application to cross-examine Deepak following two conflicting defence statements he gave in the suit by Santamil and her three children seeking claiming damages for injury and loss of income.

Santamil (below) had sought to strike out Deepak's second defence which was filed by Shafee.

After the suit was filed, it was reported that Deepak had dismissed Shafee as his lawyer and sent his first defence statement directly to Santamil's solicitors Americk Sidhu on Oct 25 last year without giving a copy to the court.

However, he then rehired Shafee as his lawyer and filed a second defence statement through him dated Nov 6.

The widow is also seeking to remove Shafee from representing Deepak as Americk and Sarawak Report editor Claire Rewcastle Brown had separately affirmed an affidavit that Deepak gave Americk RM250,000 to be paid to Santamil.

They also claimed the carpet businessperson was forced to appoint Shafee under duress.

Deepak had on Feb 6 told reporters then that he hoped to tell during the cross-examination what transpired and that it would “set him free”. However, he failed to turn up on the three court-appointed dates citing ill health.

Santamil and her children filed the suit last Aug 1 claiming damages for injury and loss of income following the family's exile to India from 2008 to 2013.

This is after Balasubramaniam had made a statutory declaration in July 2008, claiming that then deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak had known slain Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu.

He retracted this statutory declaration the next day and issued a second one contradicting the contents of the first.

Altantuya was murdered in October 2006 and the case has garnered worldwide attention.