MIED fiasco: Samy’s appeal quashed

The Court of Appeal dealt the former MIC boss a blow by upholding the ruling for all MIED documents to be disclosed.

PUTRAJAYA: Fomer MIC president S Samy Vellu was dealt another blow when the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal filed by him and seven other trustees of Maju Institute for Educational Development (MIED).

The appeal was filed against a High Court ruling that MIC’s education arm disclose all documents since 1990.

With the latest decision, Samy Vellu as MIED’s chairman and the trustees must hand over cheque butts, bank statements, receipts, donation books, ledgers and invoices fom 1990 to July 2010.

The order also involved documents relating to the construction of the Asian Institute of Medicine Science and Technology (AIMST), which allegedly caused huge financial losses.

The three-men bench comprising Court of Appeal judges, Tengku Baharudin Shah Tengku Mahmud, Sulaiman Daud and Mohd Apandi Ali, also ordered that all the documents be handed to law firm Azalina & Co by March 18, the firm which acted on behalf of former MIC Youth chief SA Vigneswaran.

Counsel A Vasanthi told FMT that the bench, headed by Tengku Baharuddin, ruled that the court would not disturb the findings of the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Jan 10 this year.

She said documents sought by her client also covered all the contracts, tenders, payment made and minutes of meetings, as well as all details of receipients of Rolex watches and jewellery which were purchased with MIED funds.

The High Court had ordered Samy Vellu and the trustees to disclose all the documents and also allowed Vigneswaran’s application for the defendants to reveal the letter of appointment of MIED’s former chief executive officer P Chitirakala and her scope of work.

MIED had sought a total of 12 documents after High Court Judicial Commissioner Mah Weng Kwai on June 14 last year, allowed an application by Vigneswaran to name MIED as the plaintiff in its proposed suit against the trustees of MIED.

Besides Samy Vellu, the other defendants are his successor G Palanivel, M Mahalingam, T Marimuthu, S K Ampikaipakam, Karnail Singh Nijhar, K Kumaran and G Vadiveloo.

Other documents sought under the custody, possession and control of defendants were documents showing monies received and paid out by MIED from 1990 up to the date Vigneswaran filed a RM100 million suit against Samy Vellu and the trustees of MIED on July 5, 2010.

In the suit, MIED (Vigneswaran) claimed that all the defendants had breached their fiduciary and statutory duties, and failed to discharge responsibilities as trustees and auditors.

MIED was also seeking an injunction to restrain Samy Vellu from continuing to helm the institute, 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 for all the financial losses incurred by the institute in the time he had administered MIED as its chairman.

Vigneswaran, who is also a member of MIED, had sought the court’s permisssion to initiate the suit under the Companies Act 1965 where the Act requires a company seeking to be a plaintiff in a suit to first get the court’s permission. - FMT