BY ASHMAN ADAM Courtesy Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 17 — The Kuala Lumpur High Court today dismissed a taxi driver’s legal bid to delist the now defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist group in the country.

Malaysiakini reported Justice Mariana Yahya issuing the ruling over V. Balamurugan’s judicial review application during proceedings this morning.

Mariana had also ruled that Balamurugan had already been discharged and acquitted of an LTTE-linked court case, therefore the applicant no longer has the right or capacity to proceed with the judicial review.

It was reported that the court had set today for a decision on Balamurugan’s judicial review, which listed the Home Minister and the government as respondents. 

The judicial review was dismissed, with no order to cost,” the applicant’s lawyer Omar Kutty was quoted as saying.

The judge ruled that there had been a delay in the filing of the judicial review application because any such filing should have been made within three months of the gazette in 2014.”

On whether an appeal would be lodged over today’s High Court ruling, Omar reportedly said they would first seek the full grounds of the decision, analyse it, and then decide whether to do so.

On January 8 this year, Balamurugan filed the leave application to initiate a judicial review to declare that the LTTE details in the gazette were null and void and that the listing of LTTE as a terrorist group was unlawful, among others.

Balamurugan was among 12 individuals who were detained late last year and charged over alleged support of LTTE, among others.

However on February 21 this year, then attorney general Tommy Thomas discontinued the terrorism charges against the 12 individuals.

It was reported on February 24 that after being discharged and acquitted of the LTTE-linked charges, Balamurugan chose to continue with his legal challenge to delist the LTTE as a militant group.

In the same month, then home minister and now prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said LTTE is still a terrorist organisation in the Home Ministry’s books.