by Ganesh Sahathevan
As reported:
Vincent Tan suing Prime Minister and Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim will require review of all court decisions in favour of Tan, Berjaya and related companies - Manipulation of decisions in favour of Tan has gone so far as to rename cases to give the impression that Tan was the victorious plaintiff, even where he was defendant
It is important to recall that Tan's lawyer VK Lingam wrote at least one judgement that was decided in his favour. That incident alone ought to have instigated a review of all decisions if favout of his companies, allies and he.
To Be Read With
'Lingam wrote judgment for RM10m defamation suit'
13 Feb 2008 12:00 am©New Straits Times (Used by permission)
by Anis Ibrahim
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KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk V.K. Lingam wrote an entire legal judgment for a civil suit in which the presiding judge awarded the litigant RM10 million in damages.
This was the latest shocking testimony delivered at the inquiry yesterday.
The star witness yesterday was G. Jayanti, a former secretary of Lingam, the lawyer at the heart of the royal commission of inquiry into alleged brokering of appointment of judges.
Jayanti, 45, testified that some time between November and early December 1994, Lingam had asked her and two other secretaries, Sumanti Jaaman and Jamilah Abdul Rahman, to do some "confidential typing".
"I soon discovered that this (confidential typing) was about preparing and typing the judgment in relation to civil suit number S5–23–23–94 between Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun vs Hassan Hamzah, Soh Eng Lim, M.G.G. Pillai and four others," she said.
"Datuk Lingam was dictating from some handwritten notes the draft judgment for Sumanti to type.
"Every now and then, he would order me to get various reported cases in the library to be incorporated in the judgment.
"He completed dictating the full judgment at about 3am."
In 1994, former High Court judge Datuk Mokhtar Sidin presided over a much–publicised defamation suit registered as 'Civil case No. S5–23–23–94' filed by businessman Tan in respect of four articles about him in the Malaysian Industry magazine.
Mokhtar's written judgment, which awarded Tan RM10 million in damages, was read out on Dec 5, 1994.
The quantum awarded to Tan was seen then as setting the trend for multi–million ringgit defamation suits.
Most of Jayanti's testimony was in the form of a written statement admitted as evidence by the five–member panel headed by Tan Sri Haidar Mohamed Noor.
In the statement, Jayanthi stated: "I must stress here that when Datuk V.K. Lingam was dictating the judgment that night, he was aided by his brother V. Sivaparanjothi, Encik Adam Bachek (a lawyer then) and W. Satchithanandan (a former Industrial Court chairman)."
She added that she kept the handwritten corrections of the draft judgment until handing them over, together with the corresponding formal judgment, to her lawyer Datuk Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.
Appearing in court yesterday in a white Punjabi suit and dark green jacket, she presented her answers clearly and calmly.
Jayanti, who worked with Lingam for 13 months from April 1994, said her former employer read through the first printed copy of the judgment he had dictated.
"He corrected the draft judgment in red ink on certain pages. Sumanti then did the corrections accordingly and made a copy of the draft judgment in a floppy disk which was to be given by Datuk Lingam to Justice Datuk Mokhtar Sidin. I later discovered that the judgment as was written by Lingam was fully incorporated as the official judgment of the said judge," she said.
When asked by her counsel Shafee as to when she resigned, Jayanti said she tendered her resignation in May, 1995.
Shafee: Why did you leave the firm?
Jayanti: I was accused of taking his shares in Berjaya Group.
Shafee: V.K. Lingam accused you of stealing his shares?
Jayanti: Yes, he had one million shares.
Shafee: V.K. Lingam had one million Berjaya shares?
Jayanti: Yes. I used to deliver (the share certificates) to the securities company, it was two floors below in the same building. They went missing for a while.
Then he called me two weeks later and said they had been recovered. He asked me if I wanted to come back. I said I wanted to leave.
Jayanti, who is also represented by R.S.N. Rayes, will continue her testimony today.
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