PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court here yesterday directed liquidators of Kian Joo Holdings Sdn Bhd (KJH) to provide sufficient grounds to support their application for leave to withdraw the contempt of court charges against lawyer Datuk V.K Lingam and 24 others.
Federal Court judge Tan Sri Suriyadi Halim Omar, chairing a five-member panel, adjourned the matter to July 24 for liquidators, Ooi Woon Chee and Ng Kim Tuck, to come up with the grounds.
“We are of one mind. We do observe that the dispute, being a prima facie case of contempt, no one had stood up to object the withdrawal of the application.
“The Attorney-General Chambers has taken a neutral stand,” he said.
Justice Suriyadi said the court seemed to have been scandalised and no one had stood up for them.
“We (the judges) have been the target (in this matter). I don’t think anybody can deny that. Go back and think about it. Come back with something more meaningful and with sufficient ground,” he added.
Earlier, lawyer S. Suhendran, representing the liquidators, applied to the court for leave to withdraw the contempt of court charges against the 25 people.
The application was made on the grounds that there was no longer a necessity to proceed with the contempt as the liquidators had distributed the Kian Joo assets, which was the subject matter to the litigation, he added.
He also said the dispute had been outstanding for 19 years.
Ooi and Ng had obtained leave from the Federal Court on April 3, 2012, to cite Lingam and 24 others for contempt of court for alleging that a Federal Court bench had plagiarised a judgment.
Lawyers Lingam, A.S Thisinayagam, 12 majority and 11 minority contributories of Kian Joo supported the withdrawal application.
Senior Federal Counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, representing the Attorney-General Chambers, also
told the court that they were not objecting to the application to withdraw the contempt of court charges.
However, lawyer Ranjit Singh, who is holding a watching brief for the Bar Council, said the Bar took the position that an application of that nature must be supported with sufficient grounds.
“This is no more a private matter. The judiciary has been scandalised since leave to cite contempt of court was obtained, which meant that there was prima facie contempt,” he added.
On January 5 2012, the Federal Court’s three-man panel had ruled in favour of the liquidators of KJH to proceed with the sale of 146.13 million of Kian Joo shares held by KJH to Can-One Bhd for RM241.12 million.
In 2009, the respondents filed an application at the High Court after Can-One won the tender to purchase the 32.9 per cent stake in KJCF.
They failed to stop Can-One from acquiring the shares at the High Court, but the Court of Appeal reversed the decision and the case was brought to the Federal Court, which ruled in favour of the liquidators.
They filed a notice of motion through Lingam, seeking the Federal Court to review the decision by its previous panel.
In the notice of motion, they gave grounds for the review, claiming that the Federal Court’s 47-page judgment was substantially a reproduction of a written submission from Ooi and Ng, without any attribution to them.
On May 22, 2013, the Federal Court dismissed their (Lingam and 24 others) review application. — Bernama