SHAH ALAM: The Shah Alam High Court today postponed the seizure of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) property for four days after the higher learning institution settled a sum of RM8,000 this morning to the plaintiff.
Nur Aliah Selamat, the lawyer for the plaintiff, Mutiara Gemilang Engineering Sdn Bhd, said the RM8,000 was the sum of judgments dated August 2 and November 20 last year, which UiTM had to pay to the company.
“We had asked UiTM’s legal representatives to settle the RM8,000 to us as early as November 2017 but the payment wasn’t made.
“As such, we filed for seizure of property to reclaim the RM8,000, which was scheduled to take place today. However, at 9.10am today, our office received a settlement cheque from the defendant for the RM8,000.
“The court has extended the date of seizure by another four days. The court will fix a new date, and seeing that the defendant has settled the amount via cheque, we will have to wait for the cheque to clear,” the lawyer told reporters today.
On April 20 last year, the engineering firm had sued UiTM for RM40.8 million for breaching the payment terms over a contract involving the supply, delivery, installation, testing and certification of machinery and equipment for all new courses at its UiTM Puncak Alam’s campus in Shah Alam.
Based on the December 9, 2010 agreement, Mutiara Gemilang Engineering had been granted a RM134.5 contract which needed to be paid in stages upon completion of works.
UiTM, however, was found to have broken the law by depositing one payment, worth RM11 million, into an individual’s private bank account.
Mutiara Gemilang Engineering had pleaded that the payment led to severe financial woes for the plaintiff, who bore huge losses as it had to seek other sources of funding, including making third party loans, which ultimately affected its budget.
Mutiara Gemilang Engineering, in a statement, said the seizure action against UiTM was made after the university failed to pay RM8,000 in costs.
The payment order was made following UiTM’s failure to cancel a summons application by the company and suspend court proceedings.
Mutiara Gemilang Engineering then filed a seal and seizure proceeding to settle the outstanding costs.
Asked if the payment meant that the RM8,000 has finalised the outstanding claims between the two parties, Nur Aliah replied in the negative.
The RM8,000, she explained, only amounted to the legal fees for the two applications made earlier, which amounted to a claim of more than RM40 million.