Justice Zabariah Yusof fixed the date after the court was told that lawyer Shafee Abdullah, representing Ramasamy, was on medical leave.

The other judges who sat with Zabariah were Justices Hasnah Hashim and Mary Lim.

Co-counsel Sarah Abishegam apologised to the court for Shafee’s absence today, saying doctors had advised that he restrict his movements.

Yuneswaran’s lawyer, Lau Yi Leong, and senior federal counsel Suzana Atan, who appeared for the Election Commission (EC), a co-respondent, did not object to the postponement.

Zabariah said Ramasamy’s appeal will be heard in open court on Aug 1.

On April 3, the Muar election court affirmed Yuneswaran’s victory as the Segamat MP and dismissed Ramasamy’s petition to unseat him.

Yuneswaran won with a majority of 5,669 votes, defeating Ramasamy, Perikatan Nasional’s P Poobalan and Pejuang’s Syed Hairoul Faizey in a four-cornered contest.

Ramasamy alleged that Yuneswaran and his agents violated election rules regarding campaign materials.

The MIC candidate also claimed that Yuneswaran had distributed food parcels to voters on the campaign trail.

Ramasamy previously told the election court that Yuneswaran had on Nov 18 last year “corruptly” given food to voters at a Chinese temple event to influence recipients to vote for him.

He lodged a police report following the temple event.

Justice Radzi Abdul Hamid, who heard the petition at the first instance, said: “The single act of treating (devotees with food) at the temple cannot be presupposed to have affected the result of the election under Section 32(a) of EOA.”

The court also said Ramasamy had failed to establish that those who attended Yuneswaran’s temple event were voters in the constituency.

“It would be necessary to name the recipients of the food packs to make out a case that they were, in fact, Segamat voters and that they were corruptly induced to vote for the respondent (Yuneswaran),” Radzi said.