Court fixes March 29 to hear application to reinstate Najib, 7 others in suit
KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court has fixed March 29 to hear businessman Deepak Jaikishan’s application to name former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and seven others as third parties in the suit by the family of private investigator P. Balasubramaniam, 53.
Deepak’s counsel, Vinod Kamalanathan, said the notice for the third-party proceedings against the eight, who were previously defendants in the suit filed by Balasubramaniam’s widow, A. Santamil Selvi, had been served last year.
He said his client took up the third party proceedings to seek indemnity from the eight as third parties.
“All of them have struck themselves out of the suit at the Court of Appeal and my client has given instructions to file the third-party notice to bring them all as third parties so that when we go for trial, it will make it easier as all parties will be in court,” he said after the matter came up for case management in the chambers of High Court judge Datuk Azimah Omar yesterday.
He said the eight objected to being added as third parties on grounds that they were already made parties before the suit was struck out and that these issues had already been argued, brought up and decided by the court.
Apart from Najib, the other seven are Najib’s wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, Najib’s brothers, Datuk Mohamed Nazir Razak and Datuk Ahmad Johari Razak, lawyers Tan Sri Cecil Abraham, Sunil Abraham and Arulampalam Mariampillai, and commissioner for oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat.
Except for Deepak, who was also named as a defendant, Santamil Selvi’s suit against the eight was struck out on July 25 last year at the Court of Appeal.
Santamil Selvi and her three children, B. Kishen, B. Menaga and B. Reeshi, filed the suit on July 23 to claim for losses incurred during their stay out of Malaysia as a result of their exile in India from July 4, 2008 to March 15, 2013, when Balasubramaniam died of a heart attack.
In their statement of claim, Santamil Selvi said Balasubramaniam was forced to withdraw his statutory declaration made on July 1, 2008, pertaining to certain facts in the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu.