Case management of Azam Baki's lawsuit against whistleblower Lalitha on Feb 15

SHAH ALAM: The Kuala Lumpur High Court has set Feb 15 for case management of the defamation suit by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki against activist Lalitha Kunaratnam.

Azam, who recently landed himself in hot water following allegations of him purchasing stock market shares in 2015, filed the legal action, via law firm Messrs Zain Megat & Murad, yesterday (Wednesday).

According to the court's e-filing system, the case will be mentioned before assistant registrar Noordura Mohamed Din at 9am.

In his 70-page statement of claim, Azam said that Lalitha whom he named as the defendant had published two articles entitled "Business Ties Among MACC Leadership: How Deep Does It Go? (Part 1)" and "Business Ties Among MACC Leadership: How Deep Does It Go? (Part 2)" on the Independent News Service (INS) news portal on Oct 26, last year.

He claimed that the articles were then republished on Dec 15, the same year.

The titles of articles itself, he said were sensational, scandalous in nature and vexatious and were published and republished with malicious intent.

This, he said had caused the readers of the articles to conclude that he was a corrupt civil servant who abused his position as the top officer in MACC to cater for his interests and that of his siblings.

He further claimed that the defendant had also on her Twitter account made tweets relating to her articles by uploading a media statement by her lawyer Manjeet Singh Dhillon.

He said although the defendant had repeatedly claimed that she was practicing ethical journalism, she had never tried to obtain his confirmation on the the articles.

The tweets as well as the media statement, Azam said were merely an attempt by the defendant to gain public sympathy and to get him into a trial by media.

He claimed that the publication and republication of the articles, tweets as well as the lawyer's media statement had tarnished his good name, reputation and standing.

He is seeking an injunction against the defendant or her agents from republishing the allegations against him and for her to take down the impugned defamatory statements, articles and tweets that had injured his reputation.

Azam is seeking among others an apology from the defendant which is to be pubished in the newspapers and social media of his preference.

He is also seeking RM10 million in general and aggravated damages as well as interests, costs and other reliefs deemed fit by the court.