PUTRAJAYA, Jan 4 — Gombak Member of Parliament (MP) Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali’s appeal to strike out a lawsuit filed by 10 voters from his constituency for alleged deceit and breach of fiduciary duty as their MP, is fixed for case management on Monday.
This was confirmed by both lawyers, Nizamuddin Hamid representing Mohamed Azmin, and N. Yohendra representing the voters, when contacted by Bernama after the case was heard virtually before a Court of Appeal three-member panel presided by Datuk Yaacob Md Sam, Datuk S. Nantha Balan and Datuk Nordin Hassan.
The case management fixed on Jan 10 is to set the date to hear the appeal, according to both lawyers.
In today’s proceedings, the court allowed Mohamed Azmin’s application to regularise the record of appeal due to an inadvertent error concerning the applicability of a Chief Justice’s Direction.
This was after lawyer Daniel Choo Vern Kai representing the voters did not object to the application. Lawyer Nurul Najwa Zainuddin appeared for Mohamed Azmin.
On June 10 last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed Azmin’s application to strike out the suit filed against him by the 10 voters registered in the Gombak Parliamentary constituency.
On the same day, High Court judge Datuk Akhtar Tahir also rejected the voters’ application to strike out several paragraphs of Mohamed Azmin’s statement of defence.
On Nov 27, 2020, the voters filed a suit against Mohamed Azmin for alleged deceit and breach of fiduciary duty as their MP through the “Sheraton Move’ that caused the Pakatan Harapan government to collapse in Feb 2020.
In their statement of claim, the voters are seeking, among others, a declaration that Mohamed Azmin, as the Gombak MP, had breached his fiduciary obligations, deceived them during the elections in the constituency and also breached the representation made to them.
They sought damages including aggravated or exemplary damages, interests, costs and other orders deemed fit by the court.
On March 12 last year, Mohamed Azmin filed an application to strike out the suit citing that the suit did not disclose a reasonable cause of action and was frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of court process.