Bekas senator menang saman fitnah terhadap Ramasamy selepas rayuan

Former senator Dr RA Lingeshwaran successfully challenged a petition for slander against Urimai leader P Ramasamy after appealing to the High Court of Kuala Lumpur. The High Court judge, Azlan Sulaiman, previously dismissed Lingeshwaran's lawsuit on April 30th and ordered him to pay a RM15,000 fee. Instead, the court issued an injunction restraining Ramasamy from repeating or publishing the disputed statements in the case.

The court also ordered Ramasamy to pay Lingeshwaran RM15,000 and return the case to Butterworth High Court to determine the amount of damages. Earlier, High Court judge Zulhazmi Abdullah ordered Lingeshwaran to pay RM15,000 after finding Ramasamy successful in using qualified defense and conditional protection in the slander case.

The lawsuit involved two statements made by Ramasamy in a Malay Mail article published on May 2, 2024, following a debate on the proposal to open a cardiac surgery postgraduate program at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in collaboration with the National Heart Institute (IJN). In the article, Malaysiakini received a response from Ramasamy regarding Lingeshwaran's objection to the proposal.

In his judgment, Zulhazmi ruled that the first statement was not slanderous, but rather a criticism within political debate. However, he found the second statement to be slanderous because it touched on Lingeshwaran's professional reputation as a doctor, but was protected by the principle of qualified opinion and conditional protection.

Zulhazmi also ruled that Lingeshwaran failed to prove that Ramasamy acted with malicious intent, as he was the sole witness providing testimony and no other witnesses were called to prove the existence of such intent, either directly or through inference.