Sri Ram is taking on his former legal partners. — File pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 8 — Federal Court judge Datuk Gopal Sri Ram has filed a civil suit against his former partners in their legal firm over the right to claim a collection of law books that he says belong to him until he left in 1994.
Submissions were made by both sides at the Kuala Lumpur High Court yesterday afternoon before Judicial Commissioner Harminder Singh and a verdict is expected on Aug 14.
At stake are law-related materials consisting of books, reports, journals and others that are part of the law library of the law firm of Sri Ram and Co up until Sri Ram's retirement from his partnership of that firm on Sept 17, 1994.
Sri Ram is the sole plaintiff while eight defendants have been named — Datuk C. Vijaya Kumar, C. Sri Kumar, R. Mohana Krishnan, Umadevi Govindasamy, Sabriya Khan, Balvinder Singh Kenth, Elizabeth Verghis and Godfrey D'Cruz.
Top lawyers Raja Aziz Addruse and Manjeet Singh Dhillon are representing Sri Ram in the suit and while his former partners have assigned Datuk Param Cumaraswamy, Nahendran Navaratnam, Alex D’Silva, N.V. Sree Harry and Chetan Jethwani as their lawyers.
According to court documents, Sri Ram claims that he built up the library as a sole proprietor of the law firm up until 1983 and partners who joined subsequent to that date were only profit and not asset-sharing partners.
"Although purchased from its fund of the law firm, it was agreed and/or accepted and/or acknowledged between the partners for the time being of the law firm: — that the law library was to belong to the plaintiff and that he alone was to have the proprietary interest and absolute ownership over it; and that for the purposes of assessing the profit of the law firm to be shared between the said partners (according to their agreed proportions), the cost of the purchase of the law library was to form part of the expenditure of the law firm," said Sri Ram in his amended statement of claim.
But his former partners are disputing this claim.
In a written submission, the defendants cited three former partners — Datuk Zulkifly Rafique, Shahul Hameed Amiruddin and C. Sri Kumar, who is also the second defendant — as denying the existence of the alleged special arrangement with regards to the law library.
"I did have an interest in the assets. It included the law library and everything else including typewriters and a number of items. I was never told that the law library was the sole property of Datuk Gopal Sri Ram," said Shahul Hameed in the written submission.
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