Judge steps down from psychiatrist fraud case

From the New Straits Times

A High Court judicial commissioner yesterday discharged himself from hearing a civil suit involving well-known psychiatrist Tan Sri Dr M. Mahadevan.

John Louis O’Hara, who was presiding in High Court 1, disqualified himself on the grounds that he knew the plaintiff personally through their involvement in polo.

O’Hara told both the plaintiff and defendant’s counsel in his chambers yesterday that he could choose to be impartial and continue with the hearing of the suit, but he did not want to put himself in a difficult position.

Mahadevan’s lawyer, Raam Kumar, said O’Hara then transferred the case to High Court 3, where Datuk Ghazali Cha is the presiding judge.

Mahadevan had filed a suit in 1998 against his sister-in-law, three nephews and two nieces claiming that they were trespassers in one of two houses built on a 1.6ha plot of land in Jalan Scotland here.
Raam Kumar said Mahadevan was asking for vacant possession of the property and for damages to be assessed against the six defendants, who were represented by K. Govinderaju.

The defendants filed a counter claim, stating that Mahadevan had fraudulently transferred the plot of land without the defendants’ knowledge in 1981.

They also stated that they had been staying at the house, No 10 Taman Scotland, since 1972.

Govinderaju said his clients were asking for the property to be returned to them.

Ghazali fixed Nov 14 for hearing.