“I am sorry. An order has been issued by the court not to reveal what transpired today,” lawyer Bastian Pius Vendargon told FMT.

Vendargon led a four-member team which appeared for the 43-year-old father in the proceeding.

On Monday, Justice Zainal Azman Abdul Aziz asked the officers to explain why they took the child away despite knowing that the court had allowed a habeas corpus application taken out by her father last Thursday.

The nine-year-old girl is embroiled in a custody battle between her parents which is pending before the same judge.

FMT has also reached out to lawyer Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar, who led an eight-member team representing the 36-year-old mother.

It is learnt that the mother has also filed an appeal in the Federal Court against Zainal’s habeas corpus ruling which saw the father – a rubber tapper and fisherman – reunited with the child after seven months.

Lawyer Hon Kai Ping held a watching brief for the Bar Council.

Despite the court order, welfare officers went to the man’s home at an Orang Asli settlement in Rompin and, relying on a provision in the Child Act 2001, took the child away.

This was following a police report by the mother who claimed the child had been abused.

Pekan magistrate Wahidah Zainal Abidin had earlier dismissed the mother’s claim for custody. She also dismissed the department’s application for temporary custody of the child.