Court of Appeal President Md Raus Sharif, chairing a three-member panel allowed Khalid’s application for an inter-parte stay order, pending disposal of his appeal over the High Court decision.
Md Raus, who presided together with Court of Appeal judges Zaharah Ibrahim and Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim, set Oct 30 to hear Khalid’s appeal against the High Court’s decision.
“This is an important issue. We grant the stay and fix an early date to hear and dispose of the appeal,” he said.
On Sept 12, this year, the High Court in Ipoh, Perak allowed a judicial review brought by M Indira Gandhi for a mandamus order to compel Khalid to arrest her former husband, Muhammad Ridhuan Abdullah and return their six-year-old daughter, Prasana Diksa to her.
Last Sept 17, Khalid obtained an interim (temporary) stay order from a Court of Appeal single judge Aziah Ali, against the high court's decision, pending hearing of the inter-parte stay application which was fixed for today.
Meanwhile, the same panel has dismissed Indira Gandhi’s application to set aside the interim stay order obtained by Khalid.
Lawyer Aston Paiva, representing Indira Gandhi, agreed to have an early hearing date fixed but he objected to the stay application.
In 2009, the Syariah Court in Ipoh had given Ridhuan, who was formerly known as K Pathmanathan, the custody of the three children, Tevin Darsiny, 17, Karan Dinish, 16, and Prasana, six, after he unilaterally converted them to Islam.
In 2010, the High Court in Ipoh granted Indira Gandhi full custody of all three children and Muhammad Ridhuan was ordered to return Prasana Diksa to the mother.
On May 30, the Ipoh High Court cited Muhammad Ridhuan for contempt and issued a warrant of arrest against him after he repeatedly failed to hand over Prasana Diksa to the mother.
Indira Gandhi had also obtained a recovery order from the high court to compel the police to locate Muhammad Ridhuan.
She then filed the judicial review seeking the mandamus order, following Khalid’s insistence on taking the middle path in cases where disputing parties had obtained separate orders from the civil and Syariah courts.
Last Sept 10, the Court of Appeal struck out Muhammad Ridhuan’s appeal against the contempt order and recovery order after ruling that the court could not hear his appeal because he did not “purge his contempt” for disobeying the court order for him to return his daughter to Indira Gandhi.
Senior federal counsel Noor Hisham Ismail and Suzana Atan appeared for Khalid.
- Bernama
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