PUTRAJAYA, Dec 5 — The Federal Court today restored the High Court decision which had struck out a lawsuit filed against MIC president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam and seven others.

The decision was made by the five-man panel led by Court of Appeal President Tan Sri 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 Datuk V. Manokaran representing the three respondents – former MIC strategic director K. Ramalingam, Datuk Henry Benedict Asirvatham and Datuk M.V. 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 Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram representing Dr Subramaniam also requested for the court to allow the appeal since the three respondents were not pursuing their legal action.

Justice 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 Tan Sri Hasan Lah, Tan Sri Ramly Ali, Tan Sri Zaharah Ibrahim and Datuk Alizatul Khair Osman Khairuddin. 

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

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

On July 11, 2016, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur allowed Dr 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, R.M. Prabu and R. Sithambaram Pillay – after they applied to discontinue the action. 

That same Federal Court panel led by Chief Justice Tun Md Raus Sharif had also granted Dr 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 Datuk Amarjeet Singh represented Mohamad Razin and Akmal, while lawyer Ho Hon Keong appeared for Jaspal Singh, Mohan and Sakthivel and lawyer Datuk Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin for Vigneswaran and Vasanthi. — Bernama