In a landmark judgment, the court allowed an application by a widow of a Tamil school headmaster to be appointed as his personal representative.
A three-member bench also allowed S Ponnamah to be substitute of her late husband, M Murugan, in the appeal. Murugan died last year.
The bench also ordered that Ponnamah be named as appellant in place of Murugan in all papers filed in the proceeding.
Judge Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, who delivered the 35-page verdict, also urged the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) to propose to the government to amend the criminal procedure code (CPC) and bring the matter in line with other countries like Singapore and India.
A Sessions Court had found Murugan guilty on two counts of corruption and sentenced him to four months’ jail on each. The High Court affirmed the findings.
Before his final appeal before the Court of Appeal, Murugan, who obtained a stay of execution, died.
The widow applied to the Court of Appeal to replace her husband but the prosecution objected, saying an appeal abated if the deceased was sentenced to jail as stated under Section 320 of the CPC.
Her lawyers, M Athimulan and R Vikraman, argued that the provision of the law only applied if an appeal was pending in the High Court and not in the Court of Appeal.
Vazeer said Ponnamah had shown a genuine and legally recognisable interest in pursuing the appeal.
“In fact, the right to receive a pension, if the appeal were to be successful, would be a right to a livelihood, to live out her golden years without hardship and with dignity,” said Vazeer, who sat with judges Kamaludin Md Said and Ahmad Nasfy Yasin.
He said Ponnamah had premised her application on a prospective pension right as a widow of a civil servant, a right under Article 147 of the Federal Constitution.
Vazeer said an appeal was a continuation of proceeding by way of rehearing and the appeal court may subject the evidence to critical evaluation.
“Hence, the findings of the Sessions Court and High Court are not final. There is legitimate expectation for anyone with legal interest to exhaust the entire appeal process,” he said.
Vazeer said the time had come to loosen the rigid application of the doctrine of abatement so justice can be done to parties with sufficient legal interest.
“In this regard, it may be appropriate for the AGC to consider and propose amendments to the Section 320 of the CPC as had been done in other jurisdictions,” he said.
The judge said that if the law allowed a representative to proceed with an appeal if the accused was fined and jailed, surely Ponnamah must be allowed to proceed when Murugan was imposed a custodial sentence.
Deputy public prosecutor Nurul Farhana Khalid appeared for the prosecution.