KUALA LUMPUR (May 25): The High Court on Tuesday (May 24) struck out a purported fraudulent suit by the late Tan Sri Dr Jamaludin Jarjis's mother, Aminah Abdullah, against her two grandchildren, his former lawyer who is now a judicial commissioner (JC), a commissioner for oaths and a law firm.
Judicial Commissioner Datuk Mohd Arief Emran Arifin in his decision stated that the suit discloses no reasonable cause of action, is scandalous, frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of the court process.
The JC also ruled res judicata , namely the issues that have been raised could have and should have been raised in Aminah's earlier litigation between her and her two grandchildren that had been decided by another High Court last year.
Mohd Arief also ruled that the letters of administration granted to Ikhwan Hafiz Jamaludin and Nur Anis Jamaludin, the two grandchildren, are valid and that the deficiencies in the document of Aminah's renunciation were held to be a mere irregularity.
The court ordered Aminah to pay RM20,000 costs to each of the five defendants.
Besides Ikhwan Hafiz and Nur Anis, the grandchildren named as defendants, the others named were Liza Chan Sow Keng, who was Jamaludin's lawyer and now a JC, law firm Wong Lu Peen & Tunku Alina and Commissioner for Oaths Tengku Fariddudin Tengku Sulaiman.
The decision on Tuesday was confirmed by Ikhwan Hafiz's counsel K Shanmuga to theedgemarkets.com. Shanmuga appeared with Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar. Separately, the firm of Wong Lu Peen was represented by Datuk DP Naban of Rosli Dahlan Saravana Partnership.
Last August, in Aminah's main suit to seek shares in three companies to be declared as part of Jamaludin's estate, the High Court only ruled that one of them, namely Rantai Wawasan Sdn Bhd, is part of his late son's estate.
The matter is now on appeal and cross-appeal by Aminah and Ikhwan Hafiz and Nur Anis in the Court of Appeal.
Suit filed last year
In Tuesday's matter, Aminah had filed the suit against the five on May 21 last year where she claimed the defendants allegedly collaborated to engage in fraud, fabrication, fraudulent concealment, misconduct and/or breaches of law to deprive her right, as a beneficiary of Jamaludin's estate, to a fair and proper administration of the inheritance.
Hence, she wanted to remove both Nur Anis and Ikhwan Hafiz as administrators of Jamaludin's estate given sufficient cause, and for fraud. The sufficient cause she cited in the suit included an allegedly wilful delay in distributing the estate, wrongful attempt to deprive the plaintiff of her entitlements, as well as their misconduct in seeking the plaintiff's renunciation.
Chan and Tengku Fariddudin, meanwhile, were said to have fraudulently colluded to unlawfully certify and fabricate the impugned letter of renunciation's sworn status.
The letter, according to Aminah's statement of claim, was initiated by her two grandchildren to be executed, asserting that it was necessary for purposes of carrying out administration according to the Islamic law of inheritance (faraid).
However, Aminah claimed the contents and consequences of the letter were not fully explained to her, and that the "sijil faraid" had in fact already been obtained.
Hence, she contended that she ought to be appointed as the administrator of Jamaludin's assets to ensure the due and proper accounting and distribution in accordance with law, as well so that her grandchildren may no longer hold distribution at bay or abuse court processes to do so. Following that, she is seeking damages on the claim.
The defendants filed an application to strike out the suit last year, and Mohd Arief heard the striking out application last April 20, after Aminah had failed in her application to recuse the JC in presiding over the matter.