PUTRAJAYA: Mkini Dotcom Sdn Bhd, the company which runs news portal Malaysiakini and its editor-in-chief, have applied to set aside the leave obtained by the Attorney-General (AG) to institute contempt proceedings against them over readers' comments which allegedly scandalised the judiciary.
Lawyer A. Surendra Ananth, who represented the two, said the application will be heard on July 2.
He said the date was fixed when the matter came up for case management before a Federal Court deputy registrar via e-review today.
"We filed an application yesterday (Wednesday) to set aside the leave order granted by the Federal Court on June 17.
"It (the application) has been fixed for hearing on July 2, the same day as the contempt proper hearing.
"My clients were only served with the committal papers on Tuesday," he added.
Senior federal counsel M. Kogilambigai appeared for the AG in the online proceedings.
On June 17, a three-man Federal Court bench led by Court of Appeal president Datuk Rohana Yusuf allowed AG Tan Sri Idrus Harun's application for leave to start contempt proceedings against the two which he named as the respondents.
The bench allowed the application on grounds that a prima facie for contempt has been established and fixed July 2 for hearing of the contempt proceedings.
The AG's application for leave to start the contempt proceedings comes on the heels of five comments on an article published by Malaysiakini on June 9 entitled "CJ orders all courts to be fully operational from July 1".
It was contended that the news portal had allowed the comments which are deemed to be offensive and embarrassing to the judiciary to be posted on the comment section of its site.