Lawyer P Uthayakumar, who has applied to the Kuala Lumpur High Court to nullify an arrest warrant issued against him last year, will have to return to court on April 11 to find out if his matter will be heard in a criminal or civil court.

This morning, judge Abdul Kadir Musa gave Uthayakumar's legal team and DPP Mohamad Hanafiah Zakariah until then to carry out research as to whether the case falls under criminal or civil jurisdiction.

"In view of a recent Federal Court decision (last week), I am giving time to all parties involved to research the matter fully. I will allocate enough time to hear the arguments and proceed with the case," he said.

The judge said the case in the Federal Court dealt with a similar matter as the present case and was ruled that it could be heard as a criminal matter.

When Uthayakumar's matter was first mentioned on Oct 11 last year, Mohamad Hanafiah had attempted to enter a preliminary objection against the application, claiming that it is a civil matter.

Uthayakumar's legal team has maintained that the case involves issues of a criminal nature. They said the warrant of arrest - issued on Aug 27 last year by a magistrate's court in response to an application by Brickfields police - should be declared null and void.

Also before the court are allegations of 'abusive' conduct by police in effecting the arrest and harassment of Uthayakumar for having highlighted cases of custodial deaths.

No change to respondents

Abdul Kadir today asked lead counsel M Manoharan to consider revising the application to name fewer than the eight respondents currently involved. However, Manoharan said his client wanted to maintain the application as filed.

"The issues here are beyond the arrest warrant as it involves the actual arrest and it is also not only a point being made for my client's interests. but also in the interests of the public," said Manoharan.

The eight respondents are the federal government, Attorney-General's Chambers, federal police chief and his deputy, the Brickfields district police chief and three police inspectors.

Mohamad Hanafiah, in his submission on this matter, asked the court to view the case as a revision of the arrest warrant, as well as to reduce the scope of the action to remove such elements as mala fide (bad faith) on the part of the police.

Manoharan countered, saying the case was criminal in nature and that the applicant was not seeking monetary damages but a declaration that the notice, issued under section 111 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), was defective.

Section 111 is a notice to appear at a police station for the purpose of having a statement recorded. This was issued in relation to investigations being carried out into Uthayakumar's claim that he had been assaulted by police.

Uthayakumar had refused to comply with the notice on the ground that the persons allegedly involved in the assault should not be the ones to investigate his complaint, and called for independent investigations. He was then arrested for about four hours.

Lawyer Amer Hamzah, who was holding a watching brief for the Bar Council, submitted that if the case is viewed as a revision of the warrant, the scope would be limited. He cited section 323 of the CPC and Section 35 of the Courts of Judicature Act.

Abdul Kadir then gave the DPP a choice of either maintaining his preliminary objection when the hearing resumes in two weeks, or proceed with a response to the original application.