The magistrate’s court here then granted them bail.

Deputy public prosecutor Edelynn Wong had applied for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal on the murder charge.

However, magistrate Sharifah Maleeha Syed Hussin exercised her discretion and granted them RM8,000 bail in one surety each and ordered them to report to the nearest police station once every two months.

The five are brothers Ng Cheng Keat, 32, and Ng Cheng Peng, 31; Kong King Xiang, 23, P Shankar Rao, 25 and Choo Zhi Jjie, 19.

They were instead charged with causing hurt with a dangerous weapon – a rotan – an offence which carries a jail term of up to 10 years and fine or whipping.

Initially they, together with another still at large, were charged with the murder of G Rejif Maran at Km40 of the North-South Expressway near here about 3am on Dec 20 last year.

They have been in remand since being charged on Dec 24. Bail is not granted for those facing capital punishment.

Lawyer Freda Sabapathy, who was assisted by K Veeranesh Babu, said the men had been produced in the magistrate’s court 10 times over the past year while awaiting the post-mortem report and consent from the public prosecutor to transfer the murder case to the High Court.

Wong objected to bail on the grounds that the offence was serious and one of the men had a criminal record.

Sabapathy, however, submitted that the charges against them had been declared as non-serious by a recent Court of Appeal decision.

“The court has the discretion under Section 388 of the Criminal Procedure Code to grant bail for a non-bailable offence,” she added.

The magistrate fixed Dec 27 for the case to be mentioned to allow the prosecution to serve the documents in preparation for their trial.