Malaysia High Court dismisses MIC's review petitions

KUALA LUMPUR: Two judicial review petitions filed by leaders of Malaysia's largest ethnic Indians-based political party MIC, challenging a directive to hold fresh elections, has been dismissed by the High Court here.

Malaysian Indian Congress president G Palanivel, vice-presidents S Sothinathan and S Balakrishnan, former secretary-general A Prakash Rao and its strategic director AK Ramalingam had filed the petitions in relation to the Registrar of Societies' (RoS) directive for the party to hold fresh elections.

Justice Asmabi upheld RoS' decision for the party to hold re-elections at all levels (branches and divisions) including the president's post.

The four party leaders filed the petitions for judicial review of the RoS directive on February 24. They were seeking a declaration that the decision of MIC's annual general meeting on November 30, 2013 was valid and enforceable.

ROS had found irregularities in the party elections held in November and recommended that the posts of three vice-presidents and 23 central working committee members be re-elected

Palanivel said they would appeal the decision and would seek an order to stay the RoS directives.

In a related development, MIC deputy president S Subramaniam said the court's decision would enable the party to move forward after almost 18 months of inactivity.

"The central working committee of 2009 should conduct the MIC election as soon as possible and restore the party to normality," he said while appealing to all the members to remain calm. The ROS had investigated several complaints of irregularities at the party elections in 2013.

The complainants wanted the ROS to nullify the results and order fresh polls for the Central Working Committee (CWC) and other senior posts. The 2013-2016 MIC elections saw a contest among eight senior leaders for the three posts of vice-president while 88 candidates, among them two women, vied for the 23 posts in the CWC.

Eight per cent of Malaysia's 28 million people are ethnic Indians.