Lingam inquiry adjourned to Friday

The royal commission of inquiry into the VK Lingam tape has been adjourned to Friday to hear applications to disqualify commissioners Mahadev Shankar and Prof Dr Khoo Kay Kim.

Commission chairperson Haidar Mohd Noor, on Day 16 of the inquiry, said the panel needed more time to look into the bundles that were submitted.

"We need time to consider the ground," he said.

The applications were put in respectively by lawyers representing former chief justice Mohd Eusoff Chin and lawyer VK Lingam yesterday.

The grounds to recuse the duo were not revealed immediately yesterday, as the lawyers were instructed to submit the applications in writing.

All commissioners now have had at least one recusal application submitted against them, but no recusal requests have been successful so far.

'Under pressure'

However, before the hearing was adjourned, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who is holding a watching brief for Lingam’s ex-secretary GN Jayanthi, told the commission that she has been under pressure.

"Jayanthi and Chandran (D Ramachandran, Lingam’s former driver) are under tremendous pressure.

"There have been attempts by several individuals to make contact with them that are inappropriate," he said.

He then asked the commission to provide assistance by telling lawyers present today to advise their clients not to make any contact.

"I’m requesting that counsels here representing their clients not make any contact with my client - be it themselves, their agents or in any other surreptitious ways," he added.

Explosive revelations

Yesterday, Jayanthi made explosive revelations against her ex-boss at the royal commission, as the 19th witness to take the stand.

She disclosed her involvement in assisting Lingam, between November and early December 1994, in drafting a judgment that eventually became the landmark decision read by High Court judge Mokhtar Sidin in the Vincent Tan vs MGG Pillai defamation suit.

At that time, Lingam was representing Tan, a business tycoon, who sued Pillai for four articles containing allegations of corruption and illegal dealings by Tan that were published in the Malaysian Industry magazine in 1993 and 1994.

Jayanthi had told the court that she ‘vividly remembers’ how Lingam dictated a draft judgment from some handwritten notes while another staff, J Sumanti, typed it out.

"Lingam then corrected the pages with red ink. Sumanti then did the corrections and made a copy of the said judgment in a floppy disk that was to be given to Mokhtar Sidin.

"I later discovered the judgment written by Lingam was fully incorporated as the official judgment by the said judge," she said.

She also revealed that Lingam was assisted by his brother V Sivaparanjothi, lawyer Adam Bachek and former Industrial Court chairperson W Satchithanandan that night.

The commission hearing will resume on Friday.