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Thursday, March 21, 2013

'Technicality' delays contempt suit on Perkasa chief


A "technicality" caused today's contempt proceedings against Malay rights NGO Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali and a blogger over unwarranted comments against a judge who presided in a defamation trial to be put off.

The matter was raised in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur by R Sivarasa, who had on Jan 17 filed the initial contempt application along with PKR vice-president N Surendran, naming blogger and author Zainuddin Salleh, and Ibrahim to be cited for contempt.

NONEBoth Sivarasa, who is Subang MP (on the left in picture), and Surendren appeared for Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim in his defamation suit against Utusan Malaysia, which Anwar won.
The trial was presided by High Court judge VT Singham, against whom the "unwarranted comments" were made.

Sivarasa quoted Order 52, Rule 4, of the Rules of Court that all notices to those cited for contempt must be served at least eight days prior to the proceeding in court.
He then admitted that he had only managed to serve the notices to Ibrahim and Zainuddin, by post, six days prior to today's hearing.

"I would like to ask for a short adjournment to ensure compliance with the rules of contempt proceedings," Sivarasa told judge John Louis O'Hara, who presided over the case.
'Court document must be served personally'
Rajinder Singh, who acted for Ibrahim, also contended that the same rule also called for personal service of the said court document on his client.

However, Rajinder conceded that Ibrahim, who was present in court today, would consider himself served if the papers were handed to him today, after the matter was stood down.

Sivarasa agreed as this would solve the matter of serving the document to Ibrahim. As for Zainuddin, who was not present and not represented either, Sivarasa said he will endeavour to serve the papers personally to the blogger.

NONEO'Hara fixed April 5 as the new hearing date for the contempt trial and instructed Sivarasa to ensure personal service of the documents upon Zainuddin at least eights days before that date, and to his affidavit immediately after that.

Ibrahim (above, right) was served with his notice of citation for contempt by Sivarasa's aide after court ended this evening.

Zainuddin had allegedly written a disparaging article about Justice Singham and posted it on his blog, part of which Perkasa produced on its website, with a link to the full article. Ibrahim was named by virtue of being a Perkasa office-bearer.

The article posted on the Perkasa blog on Jan 7 questions Justice Singham's impartiality in presiding over Anwar Ibrahim's defamation suit against Utusan Malaysia, with Zainuddin stating that the judge's rulings and decisions leaned towards the opposition.

The blog posting also questioned Justice Singham's views on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, also based on the case, and noted that the judge himself was a bachelor.

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