April 23 ruling on contempt application against lawyer

PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has deferred its verdict to April 23 to decide whether lawyer Arunachalam Kasi is guilty or not of contempt for allegedly criticising the proceedings and decision of a court case.

Justice Tan Sri Ramly Ali, who led a five-member panel, said the court reserved its decision after hearing submissions from parties in the matter.

“We will give our decision on April 23 at 9.30 am,” he said.

Presiding with him were Justices Tan Sri Azahar Mohamed, Datuk Rohana Yusuf, Datuk Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat and Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan.

On Feb 27, this year, the Federal Court allowed the Attorney-General’s exparte application for leave to initiate contempt proceedings against Arunachalam, better known as Arun Kasi, for allegedly making criticisms in reference to an affidavit of Court of Appeal Judge Dr Abdul Hamid Abu Backer on alleged judicial misconduct, in two articles published on the Aliran online portal on Feb 16 and Feb 22, 2019.

In both articles, Arunachalam had allegedly criticised the conduct of the proceedings by the Federal Court and the decision that was delivered on Nov 11, 2018, in the case of PCP Construction vs Leap Modulation.

Yesterday, Arunachalam took the stand in the witness dock testifying that he was referring to the adjudicating system and not the judiciary in his articles.

He also gave evidence stating that the articles published by Aliran were edited as some paragraphs were not part of what he wrote in his article.