KUALA LUMPUR, April 27 ― The Immigration Department director-general would be relying on hearsay to justify a travel ban on DAP MP Tony Pua if he does not provide a letter from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) on the subject, the High Court here heard today.

Pua's lawyer, Gobind Singh Deo, said the IGP's letter must be tendered in court and stressed that this was required to show the department followed procedures and had basis for its decision to block Pua from leaving Malaysia.

“Because in law, if you rely on a letter or contents of a letter, then the burden is on you to produce that letter before you can ask the court to accept its contents.

“If that letter is not before the court, then it becomes hearsay,” he said in the hearing of Pua's legal challenge against the travel ban.

Pointing out the law required the Immigration director-general to exercise his powers and make decisions on his own, Gobind said the purported letter from the IGP also raises questions on whether the D-G acted independently in preventing Pua from leaving the country.

Gobind had referred to the then Immigration Department director-general Datuk Seri Mustafa Ibrahim's court document, in which the latter claimed to have received a July 15 letter from the IGP saying Pua was being investigated under Section 124B of the Penal Code over an alleged “plot to topple the government”.

“Following the letter, I have given orders to the director of the Security and Passport Division (Division H Director) to block any application to obtain immigration facilities that have been carried out in the system,” Mustafa wrote in his affidavit.

In the April 15 affidavit, Mustafa said the department has no “legal obligations” to inform Pua that he is being investigated by the police and blocked from leaving Malaysia.

He denied that Pua's constitutional rights had been affected, also denying that the decision was unreasonable as the department was “only carrying out its duties based on the order issued by the Inspector-General of Police.

Senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan explained to the court that Mustafa's reference to “immigration facilities” meant that Pua was not allowed to leave the country despite holding a passport.

High Court judge Datuk Hanipah Farikullah fixed May 17 to deliver her decision on whether Pua was successful in his legal challenge.

On August 19, Pua filed for judicial review of the Immigration Department's decision to block him from leaving the country, arguing that it had acted beyond its powers by putting him on a travel blacklist.

He named the Immigration Department's director-general and the government of Malaysia as respondents, and asked the court to declare his travel ban unlawful, to quash it, and award him special damages.

Pua, whose passport will only expire on April 23, 2020, said he had only discovered the travel ban when immigration authorities stopped him from flying from KLIA2 to Indonesia last July 22.