Court dismisses Indira Gandhi’s suit against ex-IGP, govt

Judicial commissioner Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan said M Indira Gandhi’s claim of misfeasance in public office is a non-starter. (Bernama pic)

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court has dismissed kindergarten teacher M Indira Gandhi’s lawsuit against the former inspector-general of police and the government for allegedly failing to arrest her former husband and return her daughter who was abducted by him in 2008.

Judicial commissioner Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan said Indira had failed to prove her case on the balance of probabilities.

Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin said he tended to believe the testimonies of former IGP Abdul Hamid Bador and Yap Siew Cheng, the officer entrusted with executing a High Court order to locate K Pathmanathan, who converted to Islam and took the name Muhammad Riduan Abdullah.

He said Indira’s claim of misfeasance in public office – a failure by a public servant to perform an act required by law – was a non-starter.

“As such, I am constrained from allowing her suit,” he said in his broad grounds delivered this afternoon.

He ordered the parties to bear their costs given the nature of the case.

Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin said that based on the evidence before him, Hamid and Yap had made serious efforts to investigate the matter.

He said the police had also sought Interpol’s assistance to locate Riduan.

“In fact, they exercised their investigative duties most appropriately,” he added.

In her suit filed in 2020, Indira, 49, alleged that the former IGP deliberately and negligently disregarded a mandamus order issued by the Federal Court in failing to investigate or take appropriate action to return her daughter, Prasana Diksa, now 16, to her.

She claimed that the defendants had a role to play in making decisions or ordering the police to execute the committal warrant against Riduan as ordered by the Federal Court on April 29, 2016.

The mother of three contended that the defendants’ behaviour directly caused her continued separation from her youngest daughter until today, and that their behaviour also caused Riduan to flee.

Indira had sought RM100 million in general, aggravated and exemplary damages, as well as a declaration that Hamid had committed tort of nonfeasance in public office.

She said the government was also vicariously liable for the tort of nonfeasance committed by the police.