The legal battle over the forged ballot papers in the Bar Council Elections 2007/2008 is set for a showdown on Jan 17 with the affected parties trying to strike out the main suit.

The proper suit is by lawyer Foo Ton Hin against the Bar Council and its three election scrutineers - Inderjit Singh, Yaacob Hussain Merican and S. Radhakrishnan - that the three had acted beyond the scope of the Legal Profession Act when they purportedly declared the election null and void.

At the same time, Yaacob has filed an application to strike out the suit. Another defendant, an election candidate, too has filed similar application on the grounds that Foo has no legal standing to file the suit.

Foo himself has filed an application to amend the name of the first defendant (Bar Council) in the suit to Malaysian Bar.

Kuala Lumpur High Court judge KP Gengadharan heard arguments from all sides today and decided to dispose the striking out applications first before hearing the proper suit by Foo.

This is because if the side applications are successful, there will not be a need to hear Foo's suit.

Gengadharan also said the Bar Council should resolve this matter internally by mediation.

"Since the Bar Council's advocates are always promoting the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) among litigants, why don't you try to solve it by way of mediation?" he asked.

"The public is watching them but the Malaysian Bar itself cannot resolve its dispute internally," he said.

Faulty ballot papers

On a contention by a lawyer for one of the defendants that Foo had no legal standing to initiate the case, the judge said: "If the plaintiff has no locus standi (legal standing), it means that there is no action at all. That is why I said the Bar Council has to resolve this."

In the suit filed on Dec 6, Foo also sought for an order that the Bar Council take all necessary steps to complete the election and announce the name of the persons elected.

Foo filed his suit after the scrutineers, on Dec 1, had declared that the council election as null and void after detecting irregularities in 50 ballot papers.

Foo has also filed for an interim order that ballot cast for 2007/2008 Bar Elections be held in ballot boxes and continue to remain in the Bar Council's custody until the disposal of his case.

Foo was one of the 3,370 voters who voted on November last year to elect 12 council members for the 2007-08 term.

Serious legal obstacles

Meanwhile, Bar Council's lawyer Lambert Rasaratnam told the court this morning that his clients were keen to find out who the perpetrators were and was keenly awaiting for the police probe on this matter to be completed.

Counsel Cyrus Das, appearing for two Bar Council members, said the court must first arrange the hearing of all applications in order.

"There are very serious legal obstacles in hearing the plaintiff's (Foo) interim application first, this is because the reliefs sought by the plaintiff have far-reaching consequences," he said, suggesting that the other applications filed by defendants be heard first by the court.

"It is astonishing when an ordinary member of the Bar, who claimed he was a voter, we wouldn't know that, and who was not one of the candidates in the election, filed the action and asked for the reliefs," said Cyrus.