Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat said the judiciary did not ask the police on the matter or conduct an internal investigation as there was a pending suit in the High Court on a similar issue.
“We will be issuing a letter to the IGP to ask for the status of the police investigation.
“We did not move earlier because there was a pending suit in the High Court which has now been disposed of,” she told reporters after officiating the annual legal year today.
Tengku Maimun said now is the appropriate time to check on the status or for the judiciary to deal with whatever needs to be done since the court had made its decision.
Asked if she would continue to wait as the litigant, Sangeet Kaur Deo, has filed an appeal, the top judge said: “If we are going to wait (for the appeal process to be over) it will take longer.”
Tengku Maimun said the chief registrar of the Federal Court would be writing soon to the IGP.
Earlier, in her speech in response to the Malaysian Bar president Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor, who reiterated the call for a royal commission of inquiry (RCI), Tengku Maimun said until the authorities made a decision on whether these allegations warrant further action, they remained unproven accusations.
She said Fareed’s statement created the perception that these allegations showed that the judiciary lacked independence.
“It further suggests that without an RCI the confidence of the public in the judiciary stands eroded,” she added.
She said it was important that the Bar, which played a crucial role in upholding the independence of the judiciary, did not unwittingly erode public confidence by imputing that the entire judiciary was tainted until an RCI could be held.
The chief registrar made a report in late February last year after Court of Appeal judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer Hamid filed the affidavit in support of a suit brought against the chief justice by Sangeet.
Hamid alleged that senior judges had intervened in the decisions of numerous appeals, including Karpal’s sedition appeal.
Sangeet sought a court declaration that the top judge (at that time Richard Malanjum) had failed in his duty to preserve and protect the integrity of the judiciary.
On Oct 22 (last year), High Court judge Mohd Firuz Jaffril threw out the suit, saying it was no longer sustainable as the Federal Court had acquitted Karpal of the sedition charge in May last year.
“The originating summons is academic as Karpal’s case is no longer a live issue,” he said.
Firuz also allowed the CJ’s application to remove almost all the contents of Hamid’s affidavit as it was scandalous, vexatious and frivolous and that some of the allegations in the document were hearsay.