KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 7): One of the 12 people suing Petra Group chairman Datuk Vinod Sekhar for alleged fraud admitted in the High Court on Tuesday that there is no detailed evidence that the businessman had misrepresented himself to gain from them.

Graham David Bell, who testified as the only plaintiff witness, agreed with Vinod’s lawyer Datuk Rajan Navaratnam that there was no documentary evidence to show Vinod had misrepresented himself to the plaintiffs.

Graham also agreed with Rajan that he was not privy to any discussion, dealing, transaction between Vinod and the other 11 plaintiffs or that he had documentary evidence or knowledge of any kind of persuasion between Vinod and them.

In a fiery cross-examination, Rajan also asked Graham to show him evidence that Vinod had personally received the money from the investors or requested money from them.

The lawyer referred to Graham’s witness statement in which he said one of the plaintiffs had, upon Vinod’s request, transferred two payments of £124,000 and US$30,000 to the businessman in 2006. Vinod had allegedly acknowledged the first payment of £124,000 on or about Dec 6, 2006.

According to the witness statement, Vinod had requested the ninth plaintiff to pay the second sum of US$30,000 using his credit card for an event hosted by the businessman in Langkawi, and Vinod had promised to repay the money with shares.

Rajan: There’s no documentary evidence that Vinod had made any request to transfer the sum of money from the ninth plaintiff.

Bell: Agreed.

Rajan: There is no evidence in terms of bank documents that £124,000 or US$30,000 was transferred to any Petra companies.

Bell: Agreed.

Rajan: Do you agree with me that there’s no documentary evidence that Vinod had made any request to transfer the sum of money from the ninth plaintiff?

Bell: Agree.

Rajan also asked Bell about his purported US$250,000 investment in the early 2000s. Rajan suggested to the witness that there is no evidence put forth in court to show Vinod had made any representation to him in respect of any investment, to which Bell said he agreed.

Bell, who is a managing partner of Bridge Partners FZE, also agreed with the defence counsel that despite his own pleadings in the suit's statement of claim, of having transferred US$250,000 to Vinod upon his request on June 3, 2002, there is no evidence to prove the transaction, or to prove that Vinod had requested it.

Bell, 66, and the other 11 plaintiffs are suing Vinod and his wife, Winny Yeap Liew Heoh, in the case presided by judge Muhammad Adam @ Edward Abdullah. Acting as the court-appointed representative, Bell is testifying on behalf of all plaintiffs. Ten of the plaintiffs, including Bell, were investors with Vinod, while the remaining two were his former employees.

The plaintiffs are seeking RM30 million in damages, including interest, over alleged misrepresentation, fraud, and breach of contract occurring between 2002 and 2005. They claim Vinod persuaded them to invest in his companies without disclosing his bankrupt status at the time, and further accuse Yeap of conspiring with him to commit fraud and misrepresentation.

In his statement of defence, Vinod claimed that these investments were made with Petra Equities Management Sdn Bhd (PEMSB) and Petra Equities Sdn Bhd, but the two firms are not named in the suit.

He claimed that the firms are separate legal entities from him and his wife.

“Petra Group had acknowledged the alleged payment. However, Petra Group is not named as a party to this suit and is not an incorporated entity,” his statement of defence read.

“The plaintiffs cannot approbate and reprobate and take inconsistent stands. On the one hand, they allege that monies were paid to Vinod but on the other hand, the particulars pleaded by the plaintiffs are that monies were received by PEMSB.

“Such allegations are in any event severely lacking in particulars and do not amount to any reasonable cause of action for conspiracy and/or fraud,” he said.

Lawyer Collin Andrew Pereira, another lawyer representing the plaintiffs, made an oral application to cite a local news media outlet linked to Vinod for contempt of court for its “misleading” report on proceedings of the case on Monday.

“The report is very misleading. It says ‘Vindication begins on first day with significant wins including costs of RM60,000’. As far as I recall, there's misreporting and seems to suggest that My Lord has decided on truths and untruths,” he told the judge.

He said that to his best knowledge, there wasn’t any reporter from the portal present in court on Monday.

Collin then made an oral application to cite the writer of the article for contempt as the portal was “commenting on the merits of the suit”.

Muhammad Adam told Collin that he will deal with the matter at a later date.