A three-member Court of Appeal bench chaired by Rohana Yusof said they were mindful that striking out was a serious order to be made.
Other members of the bench were Vernon Ong Lam Kiat and Abdul Karim Abd Jalil.
The court also allowed Ismail to amend his pleadings in the statement of claim with regards to the action in the peninsula within two weeks.
The next case management is on May 7 before High Court judge Nordin Hassan who first heard the striking out application and ruled against the defendants, Daily Express editor James Sarda and the paper’s publisher, Sabah Publishing House Sdn Bhd.
The defendants argued that the suit should have been filed in Kota Kinabalu instead of Kuala Lumpur due to the existence of two high courts of different jurisdiction.
Under the Federal Constitution, the two separate jurisdictions are the High Court of Malaya and the High Court of Sabah and Sarawak.
However, Nordin said the suit could be heard in Kuala Lumpur as the effect of the first article published on the internet was more severe in the peninsula.
Ismail is taking the paper to court over three articles on protected turtle eggs served at a dinner in Kota Kinabalu which he attended between October and November 2015. It is illegal to consume or to be in possession of turtle eggs in Sabah.
Ismail said the defendants had maliciously published the articles in the Daily Express under the headings “Minister and Sabah YB have yet to comply: Dept” dated Jan 24, 2016; “Beluran turtle eggs dinner: Findings left to the AG” on Sept 3, 2016 and “Explain ‘turtle egg’ confusion first, Lim tells minister” on Sept 6, 2016.
The Bera MP from Pahang said the articles meant, among others, that he was avoiding responsibility, did not respect the law, had contravened the law and had ignored the investigation process.
He said the reports were ill-intended and had tarnished his reputation as a public leader, and demanded an apology from the defendants, as well as exemplary damages.
Ismail also applied for an injunction to prevent the defendants from continuing to publish similar articles against him in the future.
Sabah Publishing House and Sarda, in their defence, denied publishing and printing the articles with wrongful and bad intentions.
They said the articles published were produced under conditional safeguards and without malice.
Lawyer Ragunath Kesavan represented Ismail while Bhag Singh appeared for the defendants today.
Sabah publisher, editor fail to annul Ismail Sabri’s defamation suit