Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 21): The Federal Court today dismissed the appeal filed by Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas) and upheld a court ruling that DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara Member of Parliament Tony Pua Kiam Wee is not liable for defamation against the water concessionaire, according to Bernama.

The news agency reported that in delivering the unanimous decision of the five-member bench, Federal Court judge Datuk Azahar Mohamed said the court agreed with the Court of Appeal findings that the alleged defamatory words were capable of bearing the reasonable meaning ascribed by Pua.

“The findings were clearly justified and correct based on the evidence led before the High Court. It has not been successfully shown to us that the findings of the Court of Appeal on this issue was against the weight of evidence or perverse in any way, warranting our intervention,” Bernama quoted Azahar as saying.

In dismissing Syabas’ appeal, Azahar said the court agreed with the Court of Appeal decision that Pua had succeeded in the defence of justification.

He said the Court of Appeal had held that based on a witness evidence that the alleged defamatory words were capable of bearing the reasonable meaning ascribed by Pua.

According to Bernama, Syabas had on January 2011 filed a civil suit against Pua claiming that he had permitted Nanyang Siang Pau’s Metro edition to publish words defamatory of it in an article on Nov 16, 2010, entitled “Tony Pua: Selangor Government must have water rights to prevent rate hike”.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, Syabas’ parent company Puncak Niaga Holdings Bhd said the water concessionaire’s appeal was dismissed with a cost of RM25,000.

The High Court had on June 6, 2012 found Pua guilty of defaming Syabas, but the verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeal on March 27, 2013.

Puncak Niaga closed 4 sen down at RM2.56 today, for a market capitalisation of RM1.065 billion.

(Note: The Edge Research’s fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)

 

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