PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has ordered that the election petition that was filed to challenge the 15th General Election (GE15) results for the Gua Musang parliamentary constituency be sent back to the High Court for a full hearing of the merits.
A three-member panel of judges, led by Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli, allowed the appeal brought by Mohd Azmi Mahmood, a representative for Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.
Abdul Rahman said the petition contained an ample amount of details, enabling the case to be considered on its merits. He also ordered that the case be heard by a new High Court judge.
Azmi, in his petition, sought to declare the election result for the Gua Musang parliamentary constituency invalid and for the Election Commission to call for a by-election for the seat.
In a related development, Perikatan Nasional's Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin will remain the Putrajaya member of parliament after the same court dismissed an election petition appeal brought by Umno Putrajaya deputy division chief Datuk Ahmad Faisal Abdul Karim.
"There is no merit in the appeal as the particulars pleaded were lacking in details," the court said.
In the petition, Ahmad Faisal sought a court order to declare that Radzi should not have been declared the winner for the Putrajaya seat, alleging that the PN representative had given RM150 each to voters as inducement for them to cast their ballots in his favour.
Radzi, who contested under the PN ticket in GE15, won the Putrajaya parliamentary seat, defeating four-term incumbent Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor of BN with a majority of 2,310 votes in a six-cornered fight.
Pas candidate Datuk Mohd Azizi Abu Naim won the Gua Musang parliamentary seat in GE15 after defeating Tengku Razaleigh by a 1,826-vote majority.
On March 10 this year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court allowed Radzi's preliminary objection to strike out the petition after ruling that Ahmad Faisal failed to prove that corrupt practices were committed by either Radzi or his agent.
On Feb 26 this year, the Kota Baru High Court struck out Azmi's petition after ruling that the petition was filed out of the permitted time frame of 28 days as set out under the Election Offences Act 1954.
Ahmad Faisal and Azmi subsequently filed their appeals to the Federal Court against the High Court decision.