4 abandon bid to oust Negeri Sembilan ruler, court says no 2nd bite
4 abandon bid to oust Negeri Sembilan ruler, court says no 2nd bite
Judge prohibits fresh challenge after interveners accuse applicants of forum shopping and hiding related court proceedings.
High Court judge Norliza Othman allowed the withdrawal after lawyer Khairul Azam Abdul Aziz said he was instructed to discontinue the application.
Norliza also barred the four – the purported chieftains of Sungai Ujong, Rembau, Jelebu and Johol – from filing a fresh application on the same subject matter.
She ordered each applicant to pay RM10,000 to each of the four proposed interveners: the current undangs of Sungai Ujong Faris Johari and Rembau Hassan Ab Hamid, the Negeri Sembilan Dewan Keadilan dan Undang (DKU) and its secretary Raja Norazli Raja Nordin.
The applicants did not have to pay costs to the respondents, the Negeri Sembilan menteri besar and the state government.
Senior federal counsel Nurhafizza Azizan, appearing for the attorney-general, did not object to the withdrawal.
However, lawyer Steven Thiru, representing the DKU and Raja Norazli, urged the court to impose costs of RM10,000 for each of his clients.
He said the withdrawal came after the applicants failed to disclose that they had already initiated related proceedings in the Seremban High Court with two others.
“Importantly, this application here was an abuse of process because the four applicants did not disclose pending proceedings in the Seremban High Court,” he added.
Thiru said the DKU and its secretary obtained an injunction on June 5 and leave to commence committal proceedings against the six individuals on July 8.
“This was a clear case of forum shopping as well as suppression of material facts from the Kuala Lumpur High Court,” he said, referring to the judicial review filed on July 17.
He said the failure to make full and frank disclosure was also disrespectful to the court. “They want to decide what the court should and should not know”.
Thiru warned that failing to penalise the applicants in costs would effectively give litigants a licence to abuse the court process.
Lawyers Robert Low, representing Hassan, and Jasmine Irisa Ahmad Mirza, representing Faris, supported Thiru’s submissions.
The DKU, Raja Norazli, Faris and Hassan applied in August to intervene in the judicial review, seeking the full cause papers.
Thiru appeared with Shafrin Halim and Gurjeevan Singh Sachdev for the DKU and Raja Norazli, while Hafizuddin Yusof and Hariz Yusoff assisted Low.
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