Red faces at City Hall over partial sealing of building

21/04/2006 NST

KUALA LUMPUR: There were red faces all around City Hall as a father armed with a court order sealed some parts of its building in Jalan Raja Laut.

The unprecedented action by Haris Abdullah Hue, 28, was done on behalf of his three-year old son, Putera Marzuqi, who fell four floors after slipping through a broken railing at Seri Melaka flats in Cheras last December.

Datuk Bandar Datuk Ruslin Hasan, at a Press conference yesterday, was visibly surprised with the court order for a writ of seizure and sale for its failure to settle the RM500,910 in damages the court had awarded to the child.

"I am shocked such a thing can happen. The building was sealed for the first time," he said.

On Wednesday, Haris, accompanied by his lawyers, went to the Datuk Bandar’s office on the 28th floor to serve the court order but was made to wait for two hours, only to be informed later Ruslin was unable to meet them.

They then went ahead and sealed off parts of the building from 2.30pm. However, they received a cheque for the amount at 4.30pm from a City Hall official. They then called off their action.

Ruslin said the delay was caused by the appointed insurance company which failed to show up at the court hearing on March 21 "and we received the judgment in default for not attending the case".

He said that the cheque given yesterday was in lieu of the failure of the insurance company to attend the hearing. "The amount of compensation is yet to be decided by the High Court," he added.

He said City Hall was not aware of the details of the case as the family did not contact the local authority.

"If we had received any letter, we would have responded. We are a government agency, and would have been proactive on any court order," he added.

Furthermore, he said, the High Court did not ask them to attend the court hearing on March 21. "If the court had informed us, we would have given them any necessary information."

Asked if the sealing of the building affected the image of the local authority, Ruslin said: "I don’t know. Usually, there is a negotiation and discussion. Sometimes, it is settled out of court.

"We have faced a lot of compensation cases on pot holes or due to uprooted trees but this is really extraordinary. Those involved acted really fast."

He said a domestic inquiry within City Hall and the appointed insurance company would be carried out to investigate who was responsible for the slip up.