A local citizen has gone up to the Court of Appeal to resurrect the RM100 million High-Speed Rail (HSR) project between Malaysia and Singapore.
Mohd Hatta Sanuri's legal team filed an appeal on Jan 12 in order to reverse an earlier Kuala Lumpur High Court ruling that struck out his lawsuit without a full trial.
The appellant's counsel Mohaji Selamat confirmed with Malaysiakini that the notice of appeal was filed via e-filing on Friday last week.
The lawyer also confirmed that copies of the appeal notice have been served on the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC), who acts for the government in the matter.
Back on Dec 15 last year, High Court judicial commissioner Roz Mawar Rozain struck out Hatta's lawsuit for amounting to an abuse of process, describing the confusingly worded cause papers as disclosing no clear cause of action.
The court ruling was a greenlight of a striking-out application by former prime ministers Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Muhyiddin Yassin, as well as three other defendants.
The other three defendants are former minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mustapa Mohamed, former transport minister Wee Ka Siong and the Malaysian government.
Hatta's civil action is over the 2021 cancellation of the ambitious project.
However, there have been attempts to revive the project under the present Anwar Ibrahim-led administration.
Potential revival?
Malaysia and Singapore first inked the bilateral agreement on HSR on Dec 13, 2016 - during the administration of then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.
The RM110 billion project, which involves 350km of development, was intended to shorten the travel time from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore to only 90 minutes.
Later, during the Mahathir administration in late 2018, the government decided to postpone the project.
On Jan 1, 2021, Muhyiddin in a joint media statement with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Shien Loong announced the cancellation of the project.
However, since last year, the Anwar-led government confirmed the project’s revival, with the opening of a request for information (RFI) for local and international firms.
Through the lawsuit filed in December 2022, Hatta sought a court order to revive the project as well as demand that the five defendants cough up RM1 million in compensation to each Malaysian citizen.
The plaintiff was also seeking an order to compel the defendants to give a written explanation regarding the reasons for the postponement and cancellation of the project.
Hatta, 47, came into the limelight previously over a failed legal bid against the government on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarding Singapore sovereignty over Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh). - Mkini
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