M Kayveas has gone to the civil court to nullify Maglin Dennis D’cruz’s appointment as MyPPP president.
The veteran politician - who led the political party for two decades - filed the judicial review leave application at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on July 7.
Kayveas’ legal challenge targets the Home Ministry’s decision on April 11 to reverse the Registrar of Societies’ (ROS) 2019 decision to deregister MyPPP, the successor of the People's Progressive Party, which was once a powerful Ipoh-based political outfit.
In 2019, MyPPP was deregistered after two factions claimed to be the legitimate leaders of the party. Kayveas (above) led one faction while D'cruz headed the other.
On April 11 this year, D’cruz reportedly said that the Home Ministry notified MyPPP of the reinstatement of party registration, further claiming that the ROS - which is under the ministry - also recognised the validity of the party supreme council line-up that was elected earlier on March 19.
D'cruz won the party presidency unopposed during the annual general meeting.
However, through the present legal challenge, Kayveas contended that the MyPPP annual general assembly on March 19 - which saw the appointment of D’cruz as party president - is invalid.
He claimed this was because the March 19 party assembly was attended by 13 people who were allegedly not valid party members.
Kayveas claimed that the party had validly held its actual annual general assembly a day earlier on March 18, whereby he contended that he was rightfully appointed as party president.
The applicant claimed that this was conveyed to the ROS via a letter dated March 20.
Kayveas, however, alleged that on April 11, one Badrul Hisham Alias who allegedly represented the home minister had informed about the reinstatement of MyPPP’s registration.
He claimed that the decision contravened Section 18 of the Societies Act 1966, which requires the decision to be delivered by the minister and not anybody else.
Kayveas alleged that he had then written to the minister on April 18 over the alleged contravention.
The applicant also claimed that he wrote to the ROS on June 1 to air his objections over April 11’s decision.
Kayveas claimed that he had applied from the ROS for him to arrange a meeting with the registrar to resolve the issue amicably, but that the ROS gave no response to this.
Several reliefs sought
Through the judicial review, the applicant seeks several reliefs, among them being declarations that the valid MyPPP annual general assembly was the one held on March 18 and that the assembly on March 19 is invalid.
Kayveas also seeks an order of certiorari to quash the April 11 decision conveyed by Badrul Hisham.
When contacted by Malaysiakini, Kayveas’ counsel Ragunath Kesavan confirmed that the legal action is set for a hearing on Thursday this week.
This was also confirmed by a senior federal counsel from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).
The AGC represents the two respondents in the matter, namely the home minister (who is not named) and the ROS.
Kayveas helped secure MyPPP’s return to both houses of Parliament in 2004.
In 2018, just weeks before the general election, Kayveas suddenly resigned as party president but withdrew his resignation letter a few days later.
This resulted in a situation where Kayveas and D'cruz both claimed to be the MyPPP president. At the time, Kayveas' faction was adamant about leaving BN while D’cruz's group was not.
As of today, MyPPP is not part of BN. - Mkini
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