Kapar member of parliament M Manikavasam this morning filed an application at the High Court to compel the former Sentul police chief K Kumaran to answer several questions on his relationship with MIC president S Samy Vellu and his son Vell Paari.

In his application, Manikavasagam also wants the court to order the police officer to reveal why it took him a long time to investigate the death of television actress K Sujatha.

manikavasagam court 260209 01 Manikavasagam filed the application through his lawyer N Surendran at 10.23am today.

Sujatha died in June 2007 and Manikavasagam has for long been claiming that Vell Paari was implicated in the death.

He further claimed that Kumaran was slow in investigating the matter as a result of his close ties with Samy Vellu and Vell Paari.

Vell Paari had denied the accusation and Kumaran had filed a defamation suit against Manikavasagam over the claims.

Manikavasagam's application sought for the questions to be answered at the next stage of the defamation suit. The matter will be mentioned on March 5.

Sujatha's inquest is set to be heard from March 16 to 18. A total of eight witnesses are expected to testify including Vell Paari.

After filing his application, Manikavasagam also said that he would be going to the federal police headquarters in Bukti Aman next week to urge disciplinary action against Kumaran "for his relationship with Samy Vellu".

11 questions

In the application, Manikavasagam wanted Kumaran to answer eleven questions following the RM10 million suit filed by the police officer.

The questions included:

  • Do you have a close relationship with Samy Vellu?

  • Do you have close ties or relationship with Vell Paari?

  • Do you have relationships with MIC leaders?

  • What was the conclusion over the police investigations into Sujatha's death?

  • Was Sujatha murdered by any people?

  • What was the relationship between Sujatha and Vell Paari?

  • Did you contact Manikavasagam by telephone asking him not to lodge a police report against you and did you promise to reward him in return?

  • Did you invite Manikavasagam to Hotel Dynasty or the Kari Kepala Ikan restaurant in Jalan Ipoh to discuss the case?

Surendran meanwhile told reporters that the application was to compel Kumaran to reply to the answers via an affidavit.

"I am doing this in the interests of Sujatha's family who has asked me to get to the bottom of things.

"Samy has employed his thugs to prevent them from taking any action," added Manikavasagam.