Senior lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah will now appear for controversial carpet businessman Deepak Jaikishian on the suit filed by the widow of private investigator P Balasubramaniam.
This was revealed when the matter came up for case management in the Federal Court last Friday.
Lawyer Americk Sidhu, for widow A Santamil Selvi, confirmed with Malaysiakini that Shafee would be appearing for Deepak. However, no date has been fixed to hear the case.
Deepak had previously appointed Wan Azmir Wan Majid to act for him.
On Dec 18 last year, the Court of Appeal ruled Santamil's suit against Deepak for conspiracy to place them under exile as having merit and ordered it to go for trial in the High Court.
Court of Appeal judge Vernon Ong said Santamil can sue Deepak for his role, with seven others, in sending her family into exile in India for five years from 2008 to 2013.
The seven others named are Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, his wife Rosmah Mansor, Najib's siblings Ahmad Johari and Nazim, senior lawyer Cecil Abraham, lawyer M Arulampalam and commissioner of oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat.
Santamil (photo) and her three children had in 2014 filed an RM1.9 million suit for damages against Najib, Rosmah, Johari, Nazim, Cecil, Arulampalam, Deepak and Zainal Abidin on grounds of a conspiracy to put them on exile from 2008 to 2013.
The exile, they claimed was caused by Bala's first statutory declaration in which the late private investigator states that Najib knew the murdered Mongolian translator, Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Bala then retracted the first SD the very next day, signed a second one and he and his family disappeared after that.
The High Court in Kuala Lumpur in December 2014 struck out the suit without the matter proceeding to trial after judge Hasnah Mohamed Hashim ruled that Santamil had no locus standi (legal standing) to file the suit because she does not possess any letter of administration to manage the late private investigator's estate.
Reinstatement of suit against Najib, Rosmah fails
On appeal before the Court of Appeal, Santamil failed to reinstate her suit against Najib, Rosmah, Ahmad Johari, Nazim, Cecil, Arulampalam and Zainal Abidin.
Deepak conceded, before the panel chaired by Justice Ong, to allow the hearing of the suit against him by Santamil, and the case was initially remitted back to the High Court.
However, Cecil wrote a letter to Court of Appeal President Md Raus Sharif, three days after the appellate court decision, complaining that the appeal was not done in a proper manner, on the grounds that the court cannot record a consent judgment between Santamil and Deepak.
Justice Raus had sat and led in the Federal Court panel on Dec 2, last year, where lead counsel Gopal Sri Ram, for Santamil, asked the Court of Appeal president to recuse himself, but the judge refused.
The apex court also dismissed Santamil's appeal to reinstate the suit against Najib and Rosmah. -Mkini
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