Zahid Mohd Arip, the political secretary to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, today withdrew his appeal to the Court of Appeal on the classification of the 1MDB audit report under the Official Secrets Act 1972 by the previous government.

Lawyer Irzan Iswat for Zahid said since the new government  declassified the 1MDB audit report on May 15, his objective in filing the review had been achieved and had become academic.

"Hence, we apply that this appeal is withdrawn," Irzan said.

Appellate court judge Justice Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid, who led the three-member bench that included Justice Zaleha Yusof and Justice Yaacob Md Sam, agreed to the withdrawal and made no order as to costs.

Senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan appeared for the government.

Besides Zahid - who named former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and the government as defendants - PKR deputy president Azmin Ali, who is now the economics minister, had filed for a judicial review against the then government to lift the classified order on the 1MDB report.

On Jan 24, then High Court judge Kamaludin Mohd Said (now a Court of Appeal judge) dismissed the applications from Zahid and Azmin to challenge the document from being declared as confidential.

Justice Kamaludin ruled that Azmin and Zahid had no locus standi (legal standing) to get the document declassified and further ruled that Azmin was a stranger to the judicial review application.

In the last general election, Zahid had contested against Najib under the Pakatan Harapan banner for the Pekan parliamentary constituency.