Deepak fails to stop High Court judge from giving verdict

The Court of Appeal, in dismissing the businessman's stay application, says it has no merit.

A three-member bench ordered Deepak to pay RM5,000 in costs to A Santamil Selvi.

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal today dismissed a stay application by businessman Deepak Jaikishan to stop the High Court from delivering its decision on imposing sanctions against him.

A three-member bench, chaired by Idrus Harun, who also ordered Deepak to pay RM5,000 in costs to A Santamil Selvi, said the application did not have merit.

However, no grounds were provided for refusing the stay.

On Feb 6, High Court judge Hiew Siew Kheng allowed Santamil Selvi, the widow of private investigator P Balasubramaniam, to cross-examine Deepak on the two applications.

One is to expunge Deepak’s second defence and to stop Muhammad Shafee Abdullah from acting as his lawyer.

However, Deepak was absent from court on at least three occasions.

On April 20, Hiew heard Santamil Selvi’s application to sanction Deepak as her lawyers could not question him under oath.

The sanctions sought are that Deepak’s affidavit should not be used and the second defence be struck out.

Santamil Selvi instead wants the court to admit the first defence sent to her earlier by lawyer Americk Sidhu on Oct 25.

Hiew will deliver her ruling tomorrow afternoon.

Lawyer Muhammad Shafee, who represented Deepak, today told the bench that the stay application should be allowed as his client had applied to disqualify Hiew.

The recusal application has not been heard yet.

Santamil Selvi’s lawyer Gopal Sri Ram submitted that Deepak, on the eve of every hearing, was absent and was reported to have seen doctors.

“On one occasion, he got himself admitted at a private hospital here and the last time he was seeking treatment in India,” said Sri Ram, who was assisted by Damien Chan and Syed Iskandar Syed Jaafar Al-Mahdzar.

Santamil Selvi filed the suit on Aug 1, claiming for injury and loss of income following the family’s exile to India from 2008 to 2013.

This was after Balasubramaniam had made a statutory declaration in July 2008, claiming that then deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak had known slain Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu.

He retracted this statutory declaration the following day and issued a second one contradicting the contents of the first.

Altantuya was murdered in October 2006 and the case has attracted worldwide attention.

The plaintiffs named Najib, his wife Rosmah Mansor, Najib’s brothers Mohd Nazim and Johari, lawyers Sunil Abraham, Cecil Abraham and Arulampalam Mariampillai, commissioner for oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat and Deepak as parties to her action.

Santamil Selvi filed the action contending the defendants had deprived her family of a normal life and caused them to suffer financial and non-financial losses.

In the suit, the family said the defendants had caused PI Bala’s second SD to be drafted without his instruction and further caused him to sign it under threat and inducement.

He was forced to leave Malaysia for India in a hurry after signing the second SD on July 4, 2008, a day after the first was released, it claimed.

Balasubramaniam, a key witness in the Altantuya trial, died of a heart attack on March 15, 2013, weeks after returning from India. - FMT