Lawyer Chan Kay Ding said this is the result of A Santamil Selvi’s application to revoke the businessman's second defence over a suit for causing intentional harm.
A Santamil Selvi’s lawyer Chan Kay Ding said Justice Hue Siew Kheng ordered Deepak to file his submission by Jan 22 and his client by Jan 29.
“The judge will then make a ruling whether we are able to cross-examine Deepak,” he told reporters after case management in chambers.
Santamil Selvi had applied to strike out Deepak’s second defence filed on Nov 6. Lawyer Sarah Abishegam represented Deepak today.
Deepak filed his first defence on Oct 25 and it was only served on lawyer Americk Sidhu, who first represented the widow and the children.
Subsequently, lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who was listed to appear for Deepak, filed the second defence.
Deepak’s first defence stated that Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor were the masterminds who orchestrated the plaintiff’s exile to India in 2008.
However, the latest defence absolved the couple from any wrongdoing.
Americk had said the defence’s statements were “diametrically opposed” in material particulars.
Santamil Selvi had also filed an application to disqualify Shafee from representing Deepak.
Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown and Americk have filed affidavits that purportedly revealed Shafee had not voluntarily been retained by Deepak.
They also lodged affidavits in support of Santamil Selvi’s move to disqualify Shafee from appearing for the businessman.
Shafee has filed an affidavit in reply to Santamil Selvi’s applications but no hearing date has been set.
Santamil Selvi and her children have named Najib, Rosmah, Najib’s brothers Mohd Nazim and Johari, lawyers Sunil Abraham, Cecil Abraham and Arunampalam Mariampillai, commissioner for oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat and Deepak as parties to her action.
Santamil Selvi, who is also acting for the estate of Balasubramaniam, filed the action in August contending they suffered intentional harm as a result of their exile in India.
She said the defendants had deprived her family of a normal life, and caused them to suffer financial and non-financial losses.
They claimed to have suffered trauma and mental anguish caused by the defendants, and to have been deprived of a home in familiar surroundings.
Santamil Selvi, together with her two children, Kishen and Menaga, are seeking damages, with interest, for losses suffered from July 2008 as a result of their five-year displacement.
Balasubramaniam, who was better known as PI Bala, was previously embroiled in a controversy over his two conflicting statutory declarations (SD) in the high-profile 2006 murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu.
In the present suit, the family said the defendants had caused Balasubramaniam’s second SD to be drafted without his instruction and, further, caused him to sign it under threat and inducement.
He was forced to leave Malaysia for India in a hurry after signing the second SD in July 2008, a day after the first was released.
The second SD dated July 4, 2008, is supposed to have cleared Najib of any involvement in the case.
Balasubramaniam, in the second SD, said he wished to retract the entire contents of his first SD dated July 1, as it had been made under duress.
On July 3, 2008, Balasubramaniam told a press conference that the contents of the first SD, which implicated Najib and several others in the murder of Altantuya, were true.
Balasubramaniam, a key witness in the Altantuya trial, died of a heart attack on March 15, 2013, weeks after returning from India.
He was hired by political analyst and Najib associate Abdul Razak Baginda, to monitor Altantuya before her disappearance.
Meanwhile, Deepak, who also attended the proceedings in chambers, told reporters Hue asked him whether he had appointed Shafee as counsel.
“I need to accept the appointment of Shafee & Co,” he said.
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