The Registrar of Societies (ROS) will be issuing a reply soon to the appeal submitted by Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department T Murugiah over his expulsion from the People's Progressive party (PPP).

Registrar Md Alias Kalil said he was in the process of drafting the reply and that it also needed to be referred to ROS' lawyers.

"I will reply," he told reporters when met at the "ROS with the media" function at ROS' new office here today.

On Nov 24, Murugiah had given the ROS two weeks to reply to his appeal as to the validity of his sacking from the PPP, failing which he would resort to the courts for redress.

As to the court action threatened by Murugiah, Md Alias said it was up to the deputy minister whether to pursue such a course of action.

No powers

Md Alias also explained that he did not have the powers to decide as to who was in the right or wrong but had to rely on the constitutional provisions of an organisation in determining if any violations had taken place.

"In this case, the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) held by Murugiah's faction in May following his sacking from PPP (where Murugiah was declared the new PPP president) did not meet the constitutional provisions of the PPP," he said.

He said Murugiah's case was different from that of MCA deputy president Chua Soi Lek as in the latter's case, Dr Chua had merely sought ROS' views over his sacking from the MCA and at the same time MCA's top leadership had done the same.

"They, however, did not ask the ROS to make a decision for them and when we gave our views, it was accepted by MCA's central committee," he said.

Earlier, during his briefing to the media, Md Alias had said that to date there were 115,537 registered societies in the country of which 45,802 were stand alone organisations while 69,735 had branches.

- Bernama