Palanivel suspends Sakthivel, Jaspal and Mogan for 12 months

He said an illegal meeting of the purported 2009 Central Working Committee (CWC) of MIC was held at party headquarters on Feb 13 and chaired by deputy president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam.

He said the requisition for the purported illegal meeting was made by way of a letter dated Feb 11, 2015 to Sakthivel addressed as the MIC Secretary-General.

"The requisition was signed by a number of individuals including Sakhtivel claiming to be the 'secretary-general', Jaspal to be the 'treasurer-general' and Mogan to be the 'information officer' of MIC.

"It is beyond doubt that the acts of these individuals were clearly detrimental to the interests of MIC," he said in a statement today.

Palanivel said he had issued letters of suspension yesterday which will be received by them in due course.

"By virtue of the suspension of their membership, pursuant to Article 13.2 of the MIC Constitution, they shall not exercise any of their rights as a member," he said.

As MIC president, Palanivel said he had the sole and absolute prerogative to appoint the party's secretary-general, treasurer-general and information officer under Articles 46.5 and 49 of the MIC Constitution.

"I have accordingly appointed Datuk S. Sothinathan, Datuk S. Murugesan and Sivasubramaniam as the 'secretary-general', 'treasurer-general' and 'information officer' of MIC," he said.

Sakthivel was appointed secretary-general by Palanivel in May last year, and held the post for only about seven months before he was replaced by A. Prakash Rao.

MIC plunged into a crisis after the Registrar of Societies (ROS) ordered the party to hold re-elections for its three vice president posts and 23 Central Working Committee CWC) seats after finding irregularites in the party's polls held in November 2013. On Monday, Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had announced that MIC would hold fresh party elections at all levels, including for president and deputy president, from April to July, towards resolving the crisis so that the party will not be deregistered. However, at a press conference in the federal capital yesterday, Palanivel had demanded that ROS withdraw all its notices to to MIC regarding the party's problems by Monday failing which the party would haul it (ROS)to court.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who is also Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman, yesterday had said that he would be summoning Palanivel and his deputy concerning the crisis beleaguring the BN component party next week.