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Judgment copied, say appellants

Tuesday, 21 February 2012 09:50am

©The Star (Used by permission)

KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Court has been urged to review a civil judgment concerning a company’s sale of shares, claiming there were issues of plagiarism.

Former Kian Joo Can Factory Bhd (KJCF) group managing director Datuk See Teow Chuan and 13 others want the Federal Court to review the judgment.

See and the others are the majority contributories of family investment holding company Kian Joo Holdings Sdn Bhd (in liquidation), which was ordered by a High Court to be wound up in 1996. Ooi Woon Chee and Ng Kim Tuck were appointed as liquidators.

The applicants are seeking an order to re-hear two appeals by a new panel of Federal Court judges.

See said in the court papers that there was glaring plagiarism in the judgment dated Jan 5, noting that the grounds had “very largely and substantially” been reproduced, without attributing to both respondents’ first written submission dated July 4, last year.

See stated that the grounds of judgment containing over 50 paragraphs have been copied substantially without any attribution from both respondents’ written submission.

He said the 47-page judgment consisted of background facts copied almost word-for-word from a High Court judge’s decision which found in favour of the liquidators to proceed with the sale of 32.9% shares in KJCF. The Court of Appeal reversed it and the case was brought to the Federal Court level.

See claimed the reproduction of the contents of the respondents’ written submission as the grounds of judgment by the Federal Court showed that the minds of the judges were closed to a fair and impartial consideration of the applicants’ case and demonstrates no reasoning process by the Bench.

The applicants said this is a “fit and proper” case for the court to invoke its inherent jurisdiction to review the apex court’s judgment and set it aside.

They filed the application at the Federal Court registry through V.K. Lingam & Co on Feb 13. See is still a non-independent and non-executive director of KJCF.

Can-One Bhd has been allowed by the Federal Court to acquire a 32.9% stake in KJCF.

The applicants are applying for Ooi and Ng to be restrained from distributing the proceeds of RM241mil from the sale of the 146 million KJCF shares to Can-One International and the proceeds to be retained in a monthly fixed deposit account in a local bank pending the hearing and final disposal of the review application.

The appeals were brought by Ooi and Ng for directions on whether they could proceed with the sale of 32.9% KJCF shares to Can-One.

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