PUTRAJAYA: Kindergarten teacher M.Indira Gandhi’s appeal hearing over the High Court’s dismissal of her bid to get leave to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) for failing to comply with a recovery order to locate her daughter Prasana Diksa, has been rescheduled to April 5 next year.
The Court of Appeal’s three-member panel comprising Justices Datuk Seri Kamaludin Md Said, Datuk Hashim Hamzah and Datuk Azmi Ariffin was supposed to hear her appeal on Tuesday (Oct 31).
Justice Kamaludin, however, said they did not have the benefit of reading the reply submission as Indira Gandhi’s lawyers did not file the document in time.
He said Indira Gandhi’s lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan had already requested an extension of time to file the reply submission and hence the court is rescheduling the hearing to another date.
"Since it is a public interest case, the court ordered this appeal to be heard in an open court,” the judge said.
Earlier, Rajesh told the court that he was unable to file the reply submission via the court’s online system and had asked the Court of Appeal deputy registrar for an extension of time to do so.
Justice Kamaludin said they also wanted to read the reply submission and that it was fair that the matter be rescheduled so all documents could be produced before the court.
He then sent the matter for case management before the Court of Appeal deputy registrar to fix the new hearing date.
Rajesh, when contacted by Bernama, said deputy registrar Mariam Hasanah Othman fixed April 5 next year for the hearing of the appeal.
On March 3, 2009, Indira Gandhi’s ex-husband K. Pathmanathan converted to Islam and unilaterally converted their three children to Islam. He then obtained from the Syariah High Court a custody order for the three children.
On March 11, 2010, the High Court in Ipoh granted Indira Gandhi’s application for custody of the children. However, subsequent to the granting of the order, Prasana Diksa, who was eleven months old then, was taken away by Pathmanathan.
Indira Gandhi commenced committal proceedings against Pathmanathan, whose Muslim name is Muhammad Riduan Abdullah, for refusing to comply with the custody order. The High Court found him guilty of contempt of court and issued the warrant of committal.
In September 2014, the woman obtained a mandamus order to compel the IGP to execute the warrant of committal against Pathmanathan after the IGP refused to mandate the execution of the warrant of committal on the ground that the police had been put in a quandary as there were two conflicting court order granting custody.
On May 30, 2014, Indira Gandhi obtained a recovery order from the High Court directing the IGP or Police Commissioner or the Chief of Police Officer to direct and ensure the relevant police officers file an affidavit every first week of the month to update the court on the recovery process of Prasana.
She claimed the police had failed to file the affidavits and she subsequently filed an application for leave to initiate the contempt of court proceedings.
On Aug 4 last year, the Ipoh High Court dismissed Indira Gandhi’s application to get leave to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the IGP.
Senior Federal Counsel Mankiranjit Kaur appeared for the IGP. -Bernama
