THE Penang High Court will hear a defamation lawsuit filed by independent speaker Dr Zakir Naik against former Batu Uban assemblyman S. Raveentharan.

This follows the Federal Court’s dismissal of Zakir’s application for leave to appeal, after it allowed a preliminary objection by Raveentharan’s lawyers, T. Tharumarajah, Kernail Singh and Asmeeta Rajendran.

Federal Court judge Vernon Ong Lam Kiat said the Court of Appeal’s decision in August last year was premised on a preliminary objection raised at the hearing of the appeal and that the appellate court did not proceed to hear the merits of the appeal.

“As such, the present motion for leave to appeal to the Federal Court against the appeals court’s decision on the striking out of the appeal was on the basis of the preliminary objection raised by the respondent (Raveentharan) in the Court of Appeal,” he said.

He said leave cannot be granted under section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 as the application for leave to appeal must relate to a matter in the High Court in its original jurisdiction.

Justice Ong allowed the preliminary objection and dismissed the leave to appeal application with RM30,000 costs.

On July 23 last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court allowed Raveentharan’s application to transfer the lawsuit to Penang High Court, prompting Zakir to file an appeal.

However, on August 13 last year, the Court of Appeal struck out Zakir’s appeal after allowing a preliminary objection raised by Raveentharan’s counsels over non-compliance of a mandatory provision of rule 18(6) of the Rules of Court of Appeal 1994 by the former’s solicitors relating to the records of appeal.

He then filed an application to seek leave to appeal to the Federal Court.

In court proceedings today, which was conducted virtually, Kernail raised a preliminary objection saying that Zakir’s application to seek leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision was incompetent.

He submitted that the Federal Court did not have the jurisdiction to grant leave as the questions of law posed did not arise from the judgment or order of the Court of Appeal in respect of a cause of matter decided by the High Court.

He said the Court of Appeal had not heard Zakir’s appeal on the merits against the decision of the High Court in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, but merely a preliminary objection.

Zakir’s lawyer, Sulaiman Abdullah, who appeared with Dr Rafie Shafie and Akberdin Abdul Kader, argued that the Federal Court should hear the application.

He said the person raising the preliminary objections should set out in full what the various grounds were, but in this case, Raveentharan did not indicate any.

Zakir filed the lawsuit on December 12, 2019. alleging that the former assemblyman had uploaded five defamatory statements on Facebook between October 13 and 17 the same year.

He is seeking an order to compel Raveentharan to remove the defamatory statements from the websites, social media and all related mediums.

He is also seeking general, aggravated, exemplary damages and compensation, as well as other relief deemed fit by the court. – Bernama, January 3, 2022.