Federal Court upholds dismissal of Felda’s defamation suit against Wangsa Maju MP

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PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court here yesterday upheld the decisions of the lower courts which had thrown out a RM200 million defamation suit brought by the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) and its investment company against former Deputy Land and Cooperatives Minister Datuk Dr Tan Kee Kwong.

Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria, leading a five-member panel unanimously dismissed Felda and Felda Global Ventures Holdings Sdn Bhd’s appeal which was filed in a bid to set aside the decisions of the High Court and Court of Appeal which had respectively thrown out its civil action against Dr Tan.

Arifin said that Felda’s suit against Dr Tan failed because it failed to call the reporter to testify in the trial.

Presiding on the panel with Arifin were Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Md Raus Sharif, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin and Federal Court judges Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop and Tan Sri Hasan Lah.

The court delivered the decision after hearing the appeal brought by Felda and Felda Global which had on March 7, last year obtained leave from the Federal Court to appeal against the dismissal of their defamation suit. On Jan 25, 2011, Felda and Felda Global filed the suit over alleged defamatory words published against them in a front-page article of ‘Suara Keadilan’ headlined ‘Kontroversi’.

The article continued on page three under the heading, ‘Bina bangunan RM662 juta hanya libatkan tiga individu’. (Only three people involved in putting up RM662 million building). The High Court, on Aug 16, 2011, dismissed the suit after ruling that Felda and Felda Global failed to prove Dr Tan had uttered those words and was responsible for the publication of the defamatory words in the newspaper report.

On March 28, 2012, the Court of Appeal in a 2-1 majority decision rejected Felda and Felda Global’s appeal and upheld the decision of a Kuala Lumpur High Court to dismiss the defamation suit against Dr Tan, who is now PKR’s disciplinary committee chairman and Wangsa Maju member of parliament.

The Court of Appeal found that Felda as a government agency could sue an individual and also found the report to be defamatory, but was not satisfied whether Dr Tan had indeed, uttered the words to the PKR mouthpiece, ‘Suara Keadilan’.

Felda and Felda Global were represented by lawyer Datuk Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin while Dr Tan was represented by lawyers Ranjit Singh and Razlan Hadri Zulkifli. — Bernama