IPOH, Nov 12 – The High Court here today struck out Pakatan Rakyat Speaker V. Sivakumar’s suit against Perak State Secretary Datuk Dr Abdul Rahman Hashim for abuse of power, which was filed ahead of the controversial Sept 2 assembly sitting in a hotel here.
The case was struck out in the chambers of Judicial Commissioner Tarmizi Abd Rahman today after Sivakumar filed his affidavit in reply to the one filed in response to his suit by Abdul Rahman on Oct 15.
Lawyer Cheang Lek Choy, who represented Sivakumar, said the suit was “struck out with costs” after he emerged from chambers with Sivakumar and state legal adviser Datuk Ahmad Kamal Md Shahid, who represented Abdul Rahman.
The Malaysian Insider understands that Tarmizi had said Sivakumar had no locus standi to file the suit, in view of the fact that he was no longer the state assembly’s Speaker, a post with which he had used when he filed his summons in chambers on Sept 1.
Sivakumar had filed the summons one day before the Sept 2 sitting, seeking an ex-parte injunction against Abdul Rahman. The injunction was to stop Abdul Rahman from “abusing his power” and preventing Pakatan Rakyat representatives from convening the sitting inside the state assembly hall at the State Secretariat.
At the time, however, Judicial Commissioner Tarmizi refused to grant the injunction without providing reason but agreed to hear the application on Oct 1.
Seeing as the objective of the application had obviously failed, the judicial commissioner’s decision to hear the application was obviously an academic exercise.
On Sept 2, the PR representatives were stopped from entering the State Secretariat as expected and were forced to hold their sitting at the Heritage Hotel instead.
During the tumult outside the administrative building before the sitting, three assemblymen were arrested, including Sitiawan assemblyman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham, Malim Nawar assemblyman K. Keshvinder Singh and Simpang Pulai assemblyman Chan Ming Kai.
In Sivakumar’s affidavit in response today, he said that as, according to Abdul Rahman’s affidavit, the latter had no right to claim that he (Sivakumar) was no longer the legal Speaker of Perak.
“The defendant’s duty as a civil servant does not encompass interfering with matters of the state assembly,” he said.
Sivakumar added that the High Court’s decision over the sacking and the appointment of the Perak Speaker could not be used to defend Abdul Rahman’s action of blocking elected state representatives from entering the assembly hall to conduct their business.
“The defendant also does not have the jurisdiction to determine if I have the right to summon an assembly sitting. This matter is outside his jurisdiction as a state civil servant,” said Sivakumar.
Sivakumar also submitted along with his affidavit, photographic evidence portraying Abdul Rahman’s lack of impartiality.
“The pictures submitted with this affidavit show that he had wrongfully conspired with Umno politicians to stop us from entering the state assembly hall.
“He is seen in the pictures in a meeting with Umno lawyers,” said Sivakumar.
No comments:
Post a Comment