The Court of Appeal in Putrajaya has by a majority decision today ordered teacher L Subbarau @ Kamalanathan to enter his defence on six counts of having images of leaked Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) exam papers three years ago.

Justice Mohatarudin Baki who headed the panel ruled along with Justice Vernon Ong that the classification of the examination papers under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) were in order.

The third judge Justice Harminder Singh Dhaliwal was the dissenting judge who did not agree that the classification of the paper under the Act was in order, says lawyer M Kulasegaran, who appeared for Subbarau.

Kulasegaran told Malaysiakini the case will be reverted to the Seremban Sessions Court on June 16 for case management.

However, the lawyer noted that Sessions judge Jagjit Singh Bant Singh has since retired.

With this, the trial will have to be heard before another judge.

It was reported that 37-year-old Subbarau was acquitted by the sessions court in 2015, along with another teacher Murugan Palaniasamy, now 29, in 2015 without having their defence called.

Subbarau teaches at SJKT Ladang Batang Benar, while Murugan at SJKT Ladang Lenggeng. They were accused of committing the offence between Sept 8 and 16, during the UPSR examinations in 2014.

Subbarau was charged for having in his possession the Maths Paper 1 and 2, Bahasa Tamil (Comprehension) Paper and Tamil (writing) Paper as well as the Science Paper in his smartphone.

DPP Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud appeared for the prosecution.