Tan, who is the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce life president, sued Chow over alleged defamatory remarks related to his resignation from the Silver Jubilee Home for the Aged.

He told reporters at the courthouse that Chow refused a demand to publish an apology in the media.

“The mediation was not successful. We have to go to court. The truth will be revealed in court,” he said.

Earlier, Tan and Chow spent about 30 minutes in court-ordered mediation before mediator Ooi Sheow Yean at the court complex.

The trial is set for three days from Aug 26 at the High Court here. Lawyer Cheah Eng Soon represented the chief minister, while Kek Boon Wei appeared for Tan.

Tan and two other trustees quit the aged care home run by the state government in December.

According to “Buletin Mutiara”, the state government’s mouthpiece, Chow had claimed that the home was planning to build a workers’ hostel on land owned by the home without an open tender.

Chow, who is the home’s board chairman, had said that any development must go through an open tender.

“The land belongs to the Jubilee Fund, not Tan Kok Ping. The board must decide on the tender process, which did not happen,” he was quoted as saying.

The home, occupying some 9ha in Gelugor, was established in 1935 to commemorate the silver jubilee of King George V, according to its website.

It was set up under the Penang and Province Wellesley Jubilee Fund Ordinance 1935 by the then colonial Straits Settlements government, and replaced by an Act of Parliament in 1969.

It is overseen by the chief minister as chairman and three other trustees.