A former journalist from the Malaysian newspaper, The Sun , will apply to the New South Wales Supreme Court to lift the "gag order" which prevented him from exposing the business dealings of Malaysian tycoon Vincent Tan Chee Yioun.

According to the report by The Sydney Morning Herald today, Ganesh Sahathevan, who is currently residing in Australia, has been slapped with a court injunction since February this year under the Australian Fair Trading Act to prevent him from inflicting further damage to Tan's businesses.

Ganesh's counsel in Australia, Judith Gibson, said that the case has extremely serious implications for press freedom in Australia.

Ganesh was sued for defamation in Australia and Malaysia after he sent two e-mail about the troubles assailing the tycoon's conglomerate, the Berjaya Group, to six journalists in news organisations such as Fairfax, the Associated Press and The Asian Wall Street Journal .

Berjaya Group has business interests in Australia, which include a listed company called CarLovers' Carwash Limited and the country's largest video-hire chain, Video Ezy.

The Sydney Morning Herald also reported that John McDonnell, a lawyer working on behalf of Australian Minister for Fair Trading John Watkins, has intervened in the case at the Supreme Court yesterday.

Apparently, the chairman of the Australian Press Council, Professor Dennis Pearce, had earlier alerted the minister about the proceeding.

According to Pearce, the injunction (to silence Ganesh) is "a misuse of the legislation, and attempts, by the back door, to avoid the court's long-established reluctance to grant injunctions in defamation matters".

The case will be heard on Sept 7 before Justice David Levine who said he wanted to hear the case earlier because, according to him, an injunction under the Fair Trading Act "should not be granted in circumstances where it, in effect, restrains free speech".