Oct 21 for hearing of Najib, Nazifuddin's stay bid in tax arrears suit

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has fixed Oct 21 to hear the stay of execution applications by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and his son Datuk Mohd Nazifuddin on the summary judgment obtained by the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) against them over unpaid income tax arrears pending hearing of their bid for leave to appeal.

Lawyer Wee Yeong Kang, representing the former prime minister and his son, in a text message to Bernama said the hearing of the stay applications would be conducted via zoom on that day.

"We are seeking for a stay of execution of the Kuala Lumpur High Court order pending leave to appeal to the Federal Court," he said.

The case came up for case management today before Court of Appeal deputy registrar Mariam Hasanah Othman. Wee attended the case management proceedings while senior revenue counsels Muhammad Nabil Abdul Halim and Siti Aisyah Yusoff @ Md Nasir appeared for IRB.

On Sept 9, the Court of Appeal affirmed the High Court's decision to allow IRB's applications to enter summary judgment to recover tax arrears of RM1.69 billion from Najib and RM37.6 million from Nazifuddin.

COURT--NAJIB 2 (LAST) PUTRAJAYA

On the same day, a Court of Appeal three-member panel led by Justice Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil had allowed a interim stay application brought by Najib and Nazifuddin with conditions that they filed their notice of motion and stay application by this week.

A summary judgment is when the court decides a particular case summarily, without calling witnesses to testify in a trial.

They had appealed to the Court of Appeal against two previous High Court rulings.

On July 22, last year, High Court judge Datuk Ahmad Bache allowed the IRB's application for a summary judgement to be entered against Najib in its suit to recover the RM1.69 billion in taxes from the latter for the period between 2011 and 2017.

As for Mohd Nazifuddin, High Court judge Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim, had on July 6 last year, ordered him to pay RM37.6 million in unpaid taxes to IRB after allowing the board's application to enter a summary judgment against him in its tax arrears suit seeking to recover the unpaid amount from him between 2011 and 2017.

On Feb 4 this year, the IRB issued a bankruptcy notice against Najib for his failure to pay the amount as the summary judgment was not stayed while Mohd Nazifuddin was also served with a bankruptcy notice on April 30 this year over failure to pay the amount as ordered by the High Court.

Najib and Nazifuddin subsequently filed separate notices of motion on Sept 14 this year to the Federal court seeking leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal's decision in dismissing their appeals.

They sought the Federal Court to determine nine legal questions.

-- BERNAMA