Court of Appeal rejects JPJ’s bid to appeal in cloned Vellfire case

 

Dr Hema Thiyagu and her husband Dr Vengadesh Naidu with lawyer K Simon Murali at the George Town High Court in 2023.

PUTRAJAYA: 

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an application by the road transport department (JPJ) in Penang, the state JPJ director and the federal government for leave to appeal a High Court’s decision that found them in breach of their statutory duties by not properly flagging and preventing the registration of a cloned Toyota Vellfire.

A cloned vehicle is one with duplicated identification numbers, usually linked to theft. By denying the request to appeal today, the appeals court upheld the High Court’s findings and the damages awarded to the vehicle’s buyer, who unknowingly purchased the cloned car.

In a unanimous decision delivered by a three-member panel today, Justices Zaidi Ibrahim, Zaini Mazlan and Noorin Badaruddin ruled there was no error in the High Court’s judgment warranting appellate intervention.

“We find no prima facie error in the judgment of the High Court. The application for leave is without merits,” the panel said.

It dismissed the motion with no order as to costs.

The appeal was linked to a case brought by Sungai Petani health clinic medical officer Dr Hema Thiyagu who had sued the Penang JPJ director, the JPJ director-general and the federal government after discovering that her Vellfire was a cloned vehicle.

The MPV, purchased second-hand in 2020, was seized by JPJ 10 months later without explanation. Hema later learned that the vehicle’s engine and chassis numbers had been tampered with.

Previously in the High Court, Justice Anand Ponnudurai had found JPJ liable for breach of statutory duties and awarded Hema RM139,000 in damages and RM10,000 in costs.

Anand found that the JPJ had failed to fulfil its statutory duties under Section 8 of the Road Transport Act 1987 to maintain an accurate vehicle register and promptly red-flag vehicles suspected of being stolen or cloned.

The court heard that the Penang JPJ director and the JPJ director-general had approved ownership transfers and a registration number change for the Vellfire on five occasions between September 2019 and June 2020, despite the vehicle having been flagged in the JPJ system after a police report was lodged in January 2019.

Anand described JPJ’s actions as a “clear breach of statutory duties,” adding that the explanation from the department’s officers that there was no mechanism or instruction to blacklist the vehicle was “unacceptable.”

“It is obvious that within a span of nine months… the Penang JPJ director and the JPJ director-general processed, approved and validated the change in ownership of the cloned vehicle multiple times,” Anand said in his judgment.

He said the department’s failure to act had allowed the cloned vehicle to be registered to Hema, who was unaware of its status.

Hema, represented by lawyer K Simon Murali, said she was relieved at the outcome.

Senior federal counsel Aliza Jamaluddin appeared for the applicants. - FMT