The High Court ruled last Thursday that the Civil Service Commission (CSC) misused the judicial system while ordering repayment for former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs Musab Abdulla, and therefore CSC has to repay the trial costs.
In 2019, the High Court ruled that CSC had to pay Musab MVR 1.1 million in compensation over his termination from the post of the Permanent Secretary. However, when the money was not paid as due, the Civil Court ordered in November 2021 that it had to be repaid within three days.
When CSC appealed this case in the High Court, Musab's counsel requested that the court determine whether the CSC appealed this case wrongfully by misusing the judicial system under the Civil Procedure Code.
The Civil Procedure Code, which came into force last year, states that if a case is appealed in court with the intention of misusing the judicial system, the court can dismiss the case and rule that the party that filed the appeal should compensate the other party. This is the first time such a ruling has been made.
The High Court ruled that the implementation of a court verdict can only be delayed by the presence of an order of a higher court and that CSC had delayed paying Musab without such an order. Therefore, the High Court's ruling said that when the Civil Court issued an order to pay the amount to Musab, it could not be held that the order was challenged by the CSC in good faith without any legal debate and that it could amount to misuse of the judicial procedures.
The CSC said they did not request a court order to delay the repayment then as they were unable to file the case with the Supreme Court. The reason cited by the CSC was that they did not receive the case report from the High Court on time.
In response, the High Court said that the CSC requested the closure report of the case a week after the report was completed. The judgement noted that they had the opportunity to file an appeal with the summary report if they lacked the detailed report.
Musab's defence requested the High Court repay him MVR 30,000 for the cost of the trial, per the Civil Procedure Act, since CSC had misused the judicial system. According to the law, the party that loses a case can be asked to incur the trial expenses of the winning party.
The High Court ruled that the appellant should approach the Civil Court to recover the amount.
Therefore, the High Court ruled that the CSC had misused the trial system and that Musab had the right to recover the cost of the trial from the CSC.
Besides Justice Mohamed Saleem, the bench hearing the case was comprised of Justices Dheebanaz Fahmy and Mohamed Faisal. The bench was headed by Justice Saleem.
The High Court's verdict awarding MVR 1.1 million in compensation to Musab is now pending in the Supreme Court. As such, the Supreme Court passed an order delaying the release of the compensation amount.
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