KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — Datuk S. Subramaniam won an injunction in the High Court today to block his old political foe Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu from going ahead with a meeting to allegedly cement the latter’s control over the MIC’s RM1 billion education wing.
Critics led by the former MIC deputy president and also those aligned with current party president Datuk G. Palanivel have accused Samy Vellu(picture) of seeking to hijack the Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED).
This morning, Subramaniam and two other MIC leaders won an injunction to stop Samy Vellu, who is MIED chairman, from going ahead with a meeting that would have expanded the number of board members in MIED.
Critics of Samy Vellu have claimed that he planned to appoint his supporters into the MIED board.
Besides former MIC deputy president Subramaniam, former MIC Youth chief A. Vigneswaran and former Kedah state assemblyman Datuk S. Ganesan, who is also a central working committee member, were among those who applied for the injunction
The injunction order was given about half an hour before the MIED board of trustees meeting this morning.
Judge Datuk Mohd Ariff gave an ad interim injunction until March 4, to stop the admissions of new members until the application is fully ventilated on March 14.
Leaders within MIC, including veteran party and MIED members, have openly criticised the alleged plan by Samy Vellu to increase the number of MIED members by at least 10, which could see MIC’s ownership and control dissipate.
Some claimed that Samy Vellu was trying to hijack MIED by bringing in new members, an allegation which the former MIC president has vehemently denied.
The lawyers representing the plaintiffs are T. Rajasekaran and A. Vasanthi.
In the lawyers’ application, they claimed that Samy Vellu, the second defendant, had planned to increase the number of members to MIED because with the current number of members, he will not get 75 per cent of members’ support to be elected as the chairman to the board.
“Because of that, the second defendant is in a hurry to take in new members before the annual general meeting of the first defendant which is supposed to be held by the end of March or April of this year,” it said.
A requisition for an emergency meeting of the MIED to remove Samy Vellu was submitted on Wednesday by three of its board members.
Another member of the board of trustees — Tan Sri Dr T. Marimuthu — was also asked to vacate his position.
Another signatory of the requisition, Ganesan, said Samy Vellu had lost his right to lead MIED after the appointment of Datuk G. Palanivel as the party president.
Samy Vellu, Palanivel, Tan Sri M. Mahalingam, Marimuthu, Tan Sri Dr S.K. Ampikaipakam, Tan Sri Dr K.S. Nijhar, Tan Sri K. Kumaran and Tan Sri G. Vadiveloo are currently facing a lawsuit by MIED, which was initiated by Vigneswaran.
Mahalingam and Kumaran are no longer members of the board.
In the suit filed on July 5, MIED claimed that all the defendants had breached their fiduciary and statutory duties, and failed to discharge their responsibilities as trustees and auditors, which caused MIED to suffer huge losses.
It was also seeking an injunction to restrain Samy Vellu from continuing to helm the institute, that he be stripped of his membership in MIED and for him to return all monies or profits made from MIED either by himself or through family members and close friends.
MIED was also seeking a court order to make Samy Vellu compensate all the financial losses incurred by the institute during his tenure as its chairman as well as damages amounting to RM100 million.
The requisition for the EGM has come as Samy Vellu faces accusations of attempting to hijack MIED from the MIC by expanding its board of trustees, which was denied by the former works minister.
It is understood however the move oust Samy Vellu could be easily defeated as the majority of the 34 MIED members remain loyal to the party’s longest-serving president.
The Malaysian Insider understands Palanivel is still struggling to win the support of the majority of the MIED members because of his failure to award party leaders with GLC positions, government appointments and contracts.
MIED, with assets of about RM1 billion, has been chaired by Samy Vellu since it was established in 1984.
It currently has 34 members who have the power to elect the chairman of the 10-man board of trustees.
MIED is scheduled to hold its annual general meeting in the middle of this year, the first since Palanivel became MIC president last December. - Malaysian Insider
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