Prosecution failed to appeal in time in dental bribery of Tourism director-gen case

The prosecution in the case involving Datuk Mirza Mohammad Taiyab who allegedly accepted a bribe in dental treatment charges has failed to file its appeal within the prescribed time. The appeal was against the decision made by the Sessions Court on the director-general of Tourism Malaysia and since they did not meet the dateline as prescribed then it is assumed to be withdrawn. According to Saseedharan Menon, the lawyer of Mirza, “If a petition of appeal was not filed within the time prescribed under Section 307 (9) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), then the appeal shall be deemed to have been withdrawn. Under Section 307 (4) and (5) of the CPC, the petition must be filed within 14 days of receipt of the notes of evidence and grounds of judgment. The prosecution was now applying to the court for extension of time to file the petition under Section 310 of the CPC.”

He added that “The applicant (Public Prosecutor) has to satisfy the court that the failure to file the petition within the prescribed time was due to some factor beyond their control and that there were merits in the appeal for the court to do substantial justice. The prosecution had failed to give convincing and reasonable explanation for not complying with the provisions.”

“Under the circumstances, the petition of appeal was filed out of time. Substantial justice will not be done if this application is allowed. It was unlikely that the prosecution will succeed in its appeal as there were overwhelming evidence which caused the trial judge to acquit the respondent (Mirza) without his defence being called,”


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Datuk Mirza,

Hope your dentist is not Toyol, he charges you RM40,000-00 for his services lo.....

Datuk Mirza, welcome to Dr Khinzir Toyol's dental clinic.