The Federal Court today asked the Attorney-General’s Chambers to clarify whether it would contest the Penang government's leave application against the Election Commission following the latest redelineation exercise.

The three-member bench led by the Chief Judge of Malaya Ahmad Maarop earlier was informed by the Penang government lawyer Leong Cheok Keng (photo) that the state is proceeding with the application for leave to appeal.

"We are proceeding with the application as we wanted to clarify the position in the law concerning EC's recommendations on whether it is justiciable or otherwise," said Leong.

Justice Ahmad, who sat with Justice Rohana Yusof and Justice Mohd Zawawi Mohd Salleh, asked the chambers whether it is contesting the application since the chambers won't be representing the EC.

Senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan said he would seek further instructions from the attorney-general.

It was previously reported that attorney-general Tommy Thomas stated that his chambers would not be representing the EC.

Following this, the Federal Court fixed Aug 18 for mention.

Initially, today was fixed for the hearing of leave to appeal by the Penang government.

It was previously reported that the Penang government led by the then-chief minister Lim Guan Eng, had filed the judicial review in June last year, on the grounds that the present redelineation was "sustaining and worsening" malapportionment of parliamentary and state assembly seats in view of the upcoming general election.

Leave was not granted by the High Court and on Feb 21, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Penang government's appeal for it to be given leave for its judicial review application to be heard on full merits.

The Penang government filed a motion for leave last March with eight questions of law posed.