This was because, he said, Rayer had been wrong before about the law.

“Rayer should revise (read) his law. He had failed when he misinterpreted the law to instigate the Dewan Rakyat speaker to ask me to leave the House,” he told FMT, referring to a U-turn made by speaker Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof to allow Sivarraajh to attend the proceedings until a decision was made on his appeal at the Federal Court.

“This shows his shallow knowledge of the law and that he simply says things without checking the full facts of the law,” Sivarraajh claimed.

Sivarraajh was replying to Rayer’s statement today that his victory in the May 9 general election was annulled by the High Court recently because he had violated the Election Offences Act 1954 and that, therefore, he could be disqualified from contesting in the by-election on Jan 26.

Citing Section 37 of the Act, Rayer said any person whose victory was annulled could not contest again.

Meanwhile, MIC Central Working Committee member Punithan Paramsiven, in a statement, said Rayer should respect the rule of law and allow the Election Commission (EC) to announce its decision.

He said Rayer should not try to influence the EC through his statements which might add pressure to the EC which had earlier said it would announce, before Jan 12, a decision on Sivarraajh’s eligibility to contest.

Cameron Highlands has traditionally been an MIC seat. Sivarraajh won the seat with a 597-vote majority, beating four others, including his closest rival from the DAP.

The DAP candidate filed an election petition and the Election Court found on Nov 30 that there had been vote-buying by Barisan Nasional during the campaign, and nullified Sivarraajh’s win.

Orang Asli leaders had testified that BN gave a total of RM2,100 to six of their leaders a few days before polling day, including RM200 as “duit rokok” (pocket money).