LAWYER Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla has applied to intervene in the chief justice’s application to expunge parts of an explosive affidavit by Court of Appeal judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer who has alleged judicial corruption and misconduct . 

If his application is rejected, Haniff will ask the Kuala Lumpur High Court to allow him to act as amicus curiae – or friend of the court – in the CJ’s application against a suit filed earlier this year by lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo.

Sangeet, who is the daughter of DAP stalwart Karpal Singh, alleges in her suit that the chief justice had failed to address judicial misconduct raised in Hamid Sultan’s affidavit that was filed on February 14.  

Haniff, in his application sighted by The Malaysian Insight, said he was mentioned in Sangeet’s suit. 

The lawyer had said in a Facebook post last year that Karpal’s sedition case saw judicial interference by the Court of Appeal in 2016.

Haniff also said several judges were complicit in fraud carried out by nominees of politicians who had entered into business contracts with the government.

He added that he would be prejudiced if Hamid’s affidavit is expunged should the government decide not to pursue a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI), promised on February 21, to look into Hamid’s allegations of judicial misconduct. 

Sangeet’s suit was filed when Richard Malanjum was chief justice. Earlier this month she asked the new CJ, Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat to re-open investigation into cases of alleged judicial interference.

She alleged that judicial interference occurred in Karpal’s sedition case and M. Indira Gandhi’s case of her children being unilaterally converted to Islam.
 
In her late father’s case, Sangeet said the Federal Court’s acquittal of her father did not address the allegations of interference when the case was heard in the Court of Appeal.

Hamid had made his claims of interference at Malaysian Bar event last year. He then filed an affidavit to support Sangeet’s suit against the chief justice.

Karpal, who died in a road accident in April 2014, had been charged with sedition and found guilty months before his death. 

The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction in 2016, a decision that Sangeet alleged was due to judicial interference.

Tengku Maimun was the sole dissenter on the Court of Appeal panel which upheld Karpal’s sedition convicton. – July 26, 2019.