PUTRAJAYA (July 7): The Court of Appeal on Friday (July 7) allowed Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor’s application for an adjournment of next week’s four-day hearing of her appeal to set aside her conviction and 10-year jail and RM970 million fine sentence in the solar hybrid case involving 369 rural schools in Sarawak.
This follows her lawyers filing an application to seek leave to appeal to the Federal Court earlier this week, over last month’s appellate court decision to reject her bid to declare a nullity of her case following questions surrounding the fiat granted to senior deputy public prosecutor, the late Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram.
Judge Datuk Seri Azizah Nawawi, who led the three-member bench, said the decision to grant the adjournment was unanimous as this was Rosmah's first application for a postponement. Azizah added that no objection was made by the deputy public prosecutor (DPP).
“Hence, this bench agrees in granting the adjournment pending the leave application to be heard at the Federal Court. We direct that case management is done to fix the next hearing date,” Azizah said.
Sitting with her were COA judges Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk SM Komathy Suppiah.
The COA has now fixed Sept 18, as case management for the appeal.
The application to adjourn was made by Rosmah’s counsel Datuk Jagjit Singh, who appeared with Datuk Akberdin Abdul Kader and Azrul Zulkifli Stork.
Jagjit said they had filed the application to seek leave at the apex court on July 4, with case management set on August 4th.
“Hence, following this, we apply the hearing dates fixed from July 11 to 14 be adjourned due to this important issue,” the senior counsel said.
DPP K Mangai, who appeared with Poh Yih Tinn and Ng Swee Yee, said they had no objection to the adjournment.
Rosmah had, in her notice of motion, filed four questions of law in seeking leave from the Federal Court.
On June 22, a three-member COA bench ruled there was no merit in Rosmah’s appeal to seek a nullity, saying the judicial review application was filed out of time and without valid grounds for the court to exercise its discretion to grant an extension.
Rosmah, 71, had on Sept 1, 2022 been found guilty by High Court judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan (now COA judge) on all three counts of graft relating to a solar hybrid project for 369 rural schools in Sarawak beginning 2016. For her guilt, she was sentenced to 10 years in jail and fined RM970 million.