Court dismisses voters' judicial review bid against EC

The High Court in Kuala Lumpur has dismissed an application for judicial review brought by three Hulu Selangor voters against the Election Commission, after allowing a preliminary objection raised by the EC.

Judicial commissioner Azizul Azmi Adnan refused to grant leave as he agreed with senior federal counsel Amarjeet Singh and Azizan Md Arshad that the three applications were filed out of time and that the High Court has no jurisdiction to hear such applications or for the court to grant extension of time.

Azizul made no order as to costs in his decision yesterday.

Amarjeet had submitted in court that under Order 53 (3) of the Rules of Court, the applicants were supposed to file within three months from the date when the grounds of application arose.

He said the time in this case should be within three months from May 13, last year, which is the date of gazette of the notification, and not the date the three applicants receive the EC's response to their query, which was on Aug 3.

P Maradeveran, 59, Zahar Rusuli, 49, and Yong Chan Hee, 36, had in their judicial review application filed on Oct 21, last year, claimed to have been affected by the delineation exercise, which also involved the Kuala Kubu Bahru (KKB) state seat and its adjacent state constituency - Batang Kali.

Maradeveran and Zahar, who voted in the Batang Kali state seat in the previous elections, were not happy about being transferred to KKB.

Meanwhile, Yong complained about the drastic increment of 5,590 new voters from 14 localities in Batang Kali into her KKB state seat. The action resulted in an increase of voters from 21,186 to 26,720 in KKB.

They sought a certiorari order to quash the EC's decision to alter the constituencies, pursuant to the redelineation exercise.

Alternatively, they sought a certiorari order to quash the EC's decision to alter the constituency of the registered voters from Batang Kali to KKB or quashing the EC's decision in altering the constituency boundaries of KKB and Batang Kali.-Mkini