The lawyers had wanted sessions court judge Mazdi Abdul Hamid to be recused from the case after a lawyer received a call from a police investigating officer that the case was a “done deal” following a purported meeting with the judge.
However, when the lawyers asked Mazdi to recuse himself on Oct 19 last year, he refused to do so.
He had said the claims did not disclose any element of “real danger of bias” and was merely an assumption by the lawyer making such claims.
Mazdi had also said there was no evidence proving the “done deal” claim, even if a conversation had taken place.
Today, High Court judicial commissioner Mohd Radzi Abdul Hamid allowed the appeal by the lawyers and ordered for Mazdi to be recused.
Radzi, in ruling in favour of the lawyers, said the sessions judge did not refute the allegations about the alleged meeting.
He said the test of the “real danger of bias” had therefore been fulfilled, hence, the sessions judge should be recused from the case.
The case involves eight persons who had allegedly extorted a sum of money from another man. All eight claimed trial at the sessions court here in 2018.
A lawyer for one of the accused, Ramesh Rajadurai, said he received a phone call from investigating officer Loh Wooi Kee in June last year. In the call, Ramesh said Loh told him: “Bro, it is a done deal, the judge had a meeting with all of us, this case is a done deal!”
In his earlier affidavit to the sessions court, Ramesh said the words “all of us” referred to Loh and the deputy public prosecutors (DPPs) who had met the judge to discuss the case.
Lawyer V Sithambaram, leading the lawyers in the appeal at the High Court, said Loh was central to the prosecution’s case as he was the investigating officer in the case and was expected to give evidence in the case.
“It is of utmost importance for this honourable court to take cognisance of the above words in the context that Loh and Ramesh are not strangers. They have known each other for a long time, having been housemates during their university days.
“Loh’s words sounded like stern advice or a warning to his friend, Ramesh, to not contest the charges, and instead advise his client to plead guilty,” he said in his appeal to the High Court.
Sithambaram said while there was no actual bias, the sessions judge ought to have recused himself from hearing the case in view of a possibility of bias. He also relied on the Federal Court case of public prosecutor versus Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor last year.
He added that the DPPs and Loh did not object to the information presented in the appeal, which was as good as admitting it as fact.
Besides Sithambaram and Ramesh, Jagjit Singh, K Simon Murali, and Ruebankumar Asokan appeared for the appellant, Ng Tian Yu, 46.
Ng is one of the eight charged over the extortion of a businessman at a hotel in Bukit Jambul under Section 386 of the Penal Code. He and the other seven were accused of extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt, demanding a sum of over RM500,000.
DPPs Khairul Anuar Abdul Halim, Farah Aimi Zainul Anwar and Yazid Mustaqim Roslan appeared for the prosecution.