A senior lawyer told a civil court registrar that technical procedures adopted by the Election Commission in a bid to strike out a suit by an academician were defective.

"The commission did not follow the proper procedures," Karpal Singh told reporters outside the courtroom in Wisma Denmark. He said the registrar would announce on Feb 4 on whether he would accept or strike out the suit.

Economics professor Dr Jomo Kwame Sundram, 46, filed an application in the High Court on Nov 18 last year seeking a declaration that the Nov 29 general elections cannot lawfully be held without inclusion of the 680,000 newly registered voters.

Jomo, himself a first-time voter, also sought a declaration that he was entitled to vote in the Petaling Jaya Selatan parliamentary constituency and the Bukit Gasing state seat.

The commission had filed an application to strike out the civil suit stating that Jomo had no reasonable grounds for action.

In his affidavit, Jomo said he registered as a voter at the Science Faculty canteen in Universiti Malaya some time in late April or early May. Jomo said he filled the relevant forms in relation to his registration as a voter, which were accepted by the EC's agents.

He argued that under the Federal Constitution, the qualifying date was defined to mean the date to which the electoral rolls are prepared or revised, and not the completion of their preparation or revision.

He said the EC's assertion through its chairman, Datuk Omar Mohd Hashim, that the 1998 electoral rolls gazetted last January were to be used was misconceived and unconstitutional.

Last November, Omar explained it would take an average of eight to nine months to complete the entire exercise of verifying the new voters list. He said "people just refused to understand the issue" although the commission had furnished an explanation prior to the voter registration exercise in April last year.

Because of the long verification process, Jomo and other new voters were unable to vote at the Nov 29 polls.