PUTRAJAYA (Sept 21): The Federal Court on Wednesday (Sept 21) granted a stay sought by former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Datuk Mohd Nazifuddin Najib over a Court of Appeal judgement, which required the father to pay RM1.69 billion and for his son to pay RM37.64 million to the Inland Revenue Board (IRB), until the disposal of their appeal to the apex court.
The stay was granted pending the hearing of their application to appeal against the appellate court judgement last October, where it upheld the High Court’s decision for summary judgements be entered on Najib and Nazifuddin.
The three-member apex bench led by Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat allowed the stay application, following no objections by the Malaysian Government represented by the IRB’s senior federal counsel, Al Hummidallah Idrus.
The other Federal Court judges who sat with the CJ were Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan and Datuk Rhodzhariah Bujang in the online proceedings.
Najib and Nazifuddin were represented by Muhammad Farhan Shafee and Wee Yong Kang from Messrs Shafee & Co. Abhilaash Subramaniam appeared for the Malaysian Bar as amicus curiae (a friend of the court).
Two separate High Courts, presided by Datuk Ahmad Bache and Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim (now a Court of Appeal judge), had separately allowed the IRB’s application for a summary judgement to be entered against the father and son.
The Court of Appeal upheld the decisions in October 2021, but granted an interim stay of the summary judgements pending the matter being brought to the Federal Court.
Last May, Najib and Nazifuddin obtained leave from a three-member Federal Court bench, led by Tengku Maimun, to have the merits of their appeal be heard based on nine questions of law posed before the apex court bench for determination.
A case management for the hearing of the appeal of this matter has been fixed for Thursday (Sept 22) before the apex court.
Besides this income tax case, Najib is currently serving his 12-year jail sentence and a fine of RM210 million, after he was convicted on all seven charges in the SRC International Sdn Bhd case.
The former premier is also facing a trial with regard to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd Tanore case (1MDB-Tanore) and the 1MDB audit report tampering trial, which are in progress, and two other trials, namely the RM27 million SRC money-laundering case and the RM6.6 billion criminal breach of trust case with regard to the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), which Najib faces with former Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah.