Court prolongs mystery over PI Bala's five-year exile

Just what led to the late private investigator P Balasubramaniam and his family to go on exile for five years, will take a bit longer to be known.

The Federal Court today granted carpet businessman Deepak Jaikishian a stay in the suit of Balasubramaniam's widow A Santamil Selvi and her three children against him, at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur today.

Deepak was allowed leave to challenge the reinstatement of Santamil's suit against him, which is for conspiracy to place her and her family under exile.

Balasubramaniam, also known as PI Bala, first shot to prominence after he appeared at a press conference on July 3, 2008, linking then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to murdered Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu in a statutory declaration (SD).

However, Balasubramaniam abruptly disclaimed the SD on the next day with a second SD, and subsequently left the country together with his family.

Today, the three-member bench led by Chief Judge of Malaya Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin which allowed the stay, also allowed leave for three questions of law proposed by Deepak's lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah to be heard on appeal, after the appellate court reinstated the suit and ordered a hearing at the KL High Court.

"We are unanimous in our decision to grant all three questions proposed. We will fix an early hearing date for this appeal."

Shafee gave an undertaking that he will file the appeal papers next week.

On Dec 18 last year, the Court of Appeal bench allowed Santamil Selvi's suit to be reinstated against Deepak and ordered for a full hearing of the matter.

Deepak was earlier scheduled to file his defence by May 19.

The other two judges in the panel are Justices Ahmad Ma'arop and Azahar Mohamed.

Lawyers Gopal Sri Ram (photo) and Americk Sidhu, who are acting for for Santamil, then informed the panel that they are seeking for their leave application on a question of law following a consent judgment allowed by the Court of Appeal be heard later pending the outcome of Deepak's appeal.

To this, Justice Zulkefli allowed the leave application by Santamil be deferred.

Three questions of law posed

The questions of law posed by Shafee to be decided by the apex court are:

1. whether as a matter of procedural law an objection to a notice of appeal being defective and/or bad in law can be undertaken by way of a mere preliminary objection.
2. whether the filing of a single notice of appeal in respect of eight separate distinct interlocutory applications is in compliance with the procedural rules as set out in the Rules of the Court of Appeal 1995;
3. whether as a matter of law a claim of conspiracy to injure can be maintained and/or is valid when the claims against all other alleged co-conspirators has been dismissed and/or struck out inter alia on the basis that there were no reasonable cause of action raised by the plaintiffs. Sri Ram, a former federal court judge, told the court earlier that he is conceding the second question posed.

It was previously reported on June 2014, that Santamil and her children had filed close to a RM2 million suit against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor along with seven others, including Deepak following the family's exile for five years after Balasubramaniam made the first statutory declaration.

Also named in the suit were Najib's younger brothers Ahmad Johari (lawyer) and Nazim, along with senior lawyer Cecil Abraham, his son Sunil Abraham, lawyer M Arunampalam (the lawyer who appeared for PI Bala in the second SD) and commissioner of oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat.

She and the children filed the suit following Balasubramaniam and their five-year exile as a result of the SD saga in July 2008, where the former private investigator had firstly claimed that Najib knew and had a relationship with Mongolian lass Altantuya Shaariibuu who was murdered in a forest in Puncak Alam on Oct 19, 2006.

Suit struck out

Her suit against Najib, Rosmah, and the others excluding Deepak had been struck out by the High Court, Court of Appeal and Federal Court.

Despite this, Santamil's suit against Deepak still stood as the businessman had earlier on Oct 2, last year, recorded the consent order, after he conceded on allowing the hearing of the suit against him.

Deepak however withdrew what he conceded, resulting in a hearing and a decision by the Court of Appeal to reinstate the suit and order the matter to go on trial.

In his submission on the questions of law today, Shafee asked how the court hearing can continue when the evidence that Santamil likely to relate may be hearsay as PI Bala had already passed away.

Sri Ram however submitted that the court should not allow the other two questions as "what Shafee wants us to do is pre-judge the issue that the suit should be dismissed and struck out because there is no reasonable cause of action by the plaintiffs".



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