A SUIT against the chief justice for failing to address alleged judicial misconduct can only be withdrawn after two other related court matters are addressed at the end of the month, said lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo.

She also said any future judicial decision to investigate allegations of judicial misconduct as made by a Court of Appeal judge would have to wait until the hearing of an application to intervene by lawyer Haniff Khatri Abdulla on August 29 is disposed of.

Haniff wants to intervene in an application by the chief justice to expunge an explosive affidavit filed by justice Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, which is also expected to be heard on the same day.

Hamid had alleged widespread corruption in the judiciary in an affidavit filed on February 14 in support of Sangeet’s application to declare that the chief justice failed to defend the integrity and credibility of the institution in two alleged incidents of judicial interference.

Richard Malanjum was the chief justice when the suit was filed. He retired on April 13. Sangeet is now seeking to withdraw her suit after communicating recently with the current Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat that she will take another legal route to address allegations of judicial misconduct.

In Haniff’s application filed last month, the lawyer said he would like to see conflict within the judiciary resolved and that he was also a subject matter of Sangeet’s legal action.

On whether the matter would affect the formation of a royal commission of inquiry to look into judicial misconduct, which Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad agreed to in February, Sangeet said it would not be “appropriate” for her to comment.  

“The problem now is that the matter is still pending. I am a litigant and I would prefer not to comment at this time, because the matter is pending and there is expungement of the intervening application by Haniff Khatri which is pending.

“I have made an application to withdraw the matter (suit) because I have already written to the current CJ (chief justice) to make a fresh complaint to her in view of the allegation of judicial interference.

“I understand she has responded. I understand her position of conflict because she was one of the members of the panel that decided on my dad’s matter,” she said, adding that a letter has been sent to the Court of Appeal president Ahmad Maarop, the second highest ranked member of the judiciary.

“I am pursuing that way. That is the basis of my withdrawal in the court. But at the moment it remains pending because the expungement is pending and Haniff Khatri’s application to intervene in the expungement is also pending.”

Sangeet, the daughter of the late DAP stalwart Karpal Singh, filed the originating summons against the chief justice on January 14, alleging that he failed to act on alleged judicial interference in her father’s sedition appeal and the M. Indira Gandhi conversion case.

On February 21, 2014, the high court found Karpal guilty of sedition for saying the removal of Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin as then menteri besar by the late Perak sultan, Sultan Azlan Shah, and the appointment of Zambry Abdul Kadir in his place during the Perak constitutional crisis in 2009, could be questioned in court.

Karpal died in a road accident on April 17, 2014.

On May 30, 2016, his conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal. Tengku Maimun was then the sole judge part of a three-person Court of Appeal panel to dissent to the decision to uphold Karpal’s conviction.

On March 29 this year, the Federal Court ruled the high court and Court of Appeal had been wrong in failing to consider Karpal’s defence to the sedition charge over his remarks concerning the sultan of Perak’s actions. – August 20, 2019.