July 16 decision on police's bid to quash Indira Gandhi's suit

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court here has set July 16 to decide on the application of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and three others to strike out a suit filed by kindergarten teacher M. Indira Gandhi over the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM)'s alleged failure to arrest her ex-husband and bring back their 13-year-old daughter, who was abducted by the man, 12 years ago.

Lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan, representing Indira when contacted by Bernama, said the date was fixed by Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali after hearing submissions from both parties during an online proceeding today.

The striking out application was filed by the IGP, PDRM, Home Ministry, and government as the first to fourth defendants on Jan 14, this year.

According to a copy of the defendants' written submissions, they claimed that Indira's suit was scandalous, frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of the court process and it discloses no reasonable cause of action for nonfeasance in public office.

The defendants also contended that the suit amounts to a multiplicity of proceedings as a similar legal action she filed at the Ipoh High Court is still pending.

They claimed that the plaintiff (Indira) had wrongly instituted the current suit when the execution of the warrant of committal against her ex-husband K. Pathmanathan now known as Muhammad Riduan Abdullah under her judicial review application in Ipoh is still being monitored.

Therefore, the defendants contended that the remedy she sought in the current suit should be made in the said judicial review proceeding instead and asked for the suit to be struck out.

However, Indira through her written submissions contended that the remedies sought by her in the current suit differ from the judicial review proceeding at the Ipoh High Court and that there was no multiplicity of proceedings at any other proceedings for this cause of action.

In her suit filed on Oct 28, last year, Indira, 46, claimed that the IGP had deliberately and negligently ignored the mandamus order from the Federal Court and failed to investigate or take appropriate action to return her daughter, Prasana Diksa, to her.

She claimed that all the defendants had played their roles in making decisions or ordering the PDRM to execute the committal warrant against Muhammad Riduan as ordered by the Federal Court on April 29, 2016.

The woman contended that the behaviour of all the defendants had directly caused her separation from her youngest daughter, who is now 13, to continue until today and that their behaviour had also caused Mohd Riduan to flee.

She is seeking RM100 million in general, aggravated and exemplary damages, as well as a declaration that the first defendant (IGP) had committed the tort of nonfeasance in public office, and the second, third and fourth defendants were also vicariously liable for the tort of nonfeasance committed by the first defendant.

-- BERNAMA