The Federal Court has fixed May 30 to hear the leave application sought by controversial carpet businessman Deepak Jaikishan against a Court of Appeal order that he goes on trial in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur on the suit filed by the widow of P Balasubramaniam, A Santamil Selvi.

The apex court fixed the same date to hear Selvi's leave application on the Court of Appeal decision to strike out a consent judgment reached against Deepak.

The dates were fixed by Federal Court judge Azahar Mohamed.

Lawyer Americk Sidhu appeared for Selvi in the matter today, while senior lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah appeared for Deepak.

Americk informed the court that he has not received any instructions from Selvi on whether he would continue to represent her.

"Nevertheless the court can proceed and I would inform her," Americk said.

Initially, Justice Azahar wanted to fix a date for case management as the full written judgment is not ready.

However, Shafee applied for a hearing date to be fixed so that the appellate court could hurry in writing its judgment on the case.

As there was no objection, Justice Azahar fixed May 30 for the hearing.

Outside the courtroom, Americk told reporters that Selvi ( photo ) has not met him to give instructions on today's matter.

This comes as Americk has offered to discharge himself from the case after Selvi made disparaging remarks last Saturday, saying it was Americk who initiated the RM1.9 million suit and had arranged for her to speak to the Australian press on the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder.

Following this, Americk asked Selvi to retract and apologise for her statement and said because of the disparaging remarks, he would not act for her until she apologised.

Americk said he is giving Selvi more time to re-think about it, as he had offered to do her case pro-bono. The lawyer was reported to be rethinking his role following the accusations made by PI Bala's widow.

Selvi made her accusation against Americk after receiving a donation of RM21,000 from a BN-friendly NGO.

Shafee roped in

Deepak subsequenltly appointed Shafee to represent him following the Court of Appeal decision.

On Dec 18 last year, the Court of Appeal ruled Santamil's suit against Deepak for conspiracy to place them under exile as having merit and ordered it to go for trial in the High Court.

Court of Appeal judge Vernon Ong said Santamil can sue Deepak for his role, with seven others, in sending her family into exile in India for five years from 2008 to 2013.

The seven others named are Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, his wife Rosmah Mansor, Najib's siblings Ahmad Johari and Nazim, senior lawyer Cecil Abraham ( photo ), lawyer M Arulampalam and commissioner of oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat.

Santamil and her three children had in 2014 filed an RM1.9 million suit for damages against the eight on grounds of a conspiracy to put them into exile.

The exile, they claimed, was caused by Balasubramaniam's first statutory declaration, made sometime in July 2008, in which the late private investigator states that Najib knew the murdered Mongolian translator, Altantuya Shaariibuu.

The private investigator then retracted the first SD the very next day and signed a second one, after which he and his family disappeared.

The High Court struck out the suit by Selvi and her children against all the eight but in the Court of Appeal, Deepak claimed that the lawyer who appeared for him at the High Court did not represent him.

A consent judgment was initially made against Deepak in the Court of Appeal on Oct 2 last year which ordered the matter to be re-heard in the High Court.

However, as all this was taking place, the parties that had earlier got the suit struck out, including Cecil Abraham, wrote a letter to Court of Appeal president saying the consent judgment was not proper, resulting in the case being heard, leading to the Dec 18 decision.