The High Court delivered a landmark ruling yesterday in finding the road transport department (JPJ) negligent in not maintaining accurate vehicle registration records, Free Malaysia Today reported.
This case was brought by Dr Hema Thiyagu, who bought the vehicle, a 2013 Toyota Vellfire, not knowing it was a cloned vehicle. In May last year, Hema sued the Penang JPJ director, the JPJ director-general and the federal government, after the department seized the vehicle 10 months after she purchased it. The JPJ said its chassis and engine numbers had been tampered with.
Hema claimed in her suit filed that the JPJ failed to explain how the tampering was not detected when she registered the vehicle, and her lawyer K. Simon Murali submitted that the JPJ was negligent in allowing the vehicle’s chassis and engine numbers to be registered to a different vehicle.
Further submission by Murali claimed that, based on testimony from witnesses from the JPJ, there was no evidence that the previous owner of the Vellfire was present during the transfer of ownership in Ipoh, Perak, despite this being a legal requirement, the report wrote.
The stolen vehicle was then illegally registered and had changed hands several times before it was purchased by his client, who did not know its status.
The JPJ said in its defence that Hema’s vehicle was cloned and had been reported stolen in Labu, Negeri Sembilan in 2019, while its chassis and engine numbers had been from another vehicle in Johor. This Johor-registered vehicle had been owned by an insurer after an accident in 2018, and it was auctioned the following year.
A subsequent buyer, when trying to change the ownership to his name, found the vehicle was “already registered”, the JPJ said in its defence statement, according to the report. The department said it was not obliged to inspect the vehicles before registering them as these duties lay with Puspakom, saying that its registration process was based only on required documents and therfore was not legally obliged to tell Hema why her vehicle was seized.
Justice Anand Ponnudurai said the JPJ director-general has a responsibility to maintain an accurate vehicle register, especially of cars flagged as cloned, and said the department should have seized the vehicle upon discovering it was cloned. The judge said that Hema was unaware she had bought a cloned vehicle and because there were multiple previous owners, there was no suspicion in her case.
“JPJ had evidence as early as December 6, 2019, eight months before Hema bought the vehicle, suggesting that the Vellfire may be cloned, but did nothing,” and as a result, the Penang JPJ director and the JPJ director-general had breached their statutory duties, Anand said.
The judge awarded Hema RM139,000 in damages and RM10,000 in costs, which are to be paid by the federal government, which was named as the third defendant. In this case, senior federal counsel Muhammad Sinti represented JPJ and the federal government.
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A win for the public is always a good news!
Only happens in Penang, even the govt departments there are run by the towkay Mafiosos controlled by the Chief Mafia.
All sleeping on the job…JPJ ke, Puspakom ke…u can just walk there and see for yourself how they carry their duties! so this is a good wake up call..better still fire one of the top official to set an example
Slalu yg macai2 bwh je kne buang a.k.a dikambing itam kan.
What do you expect if the bos also walk like ‘ketam’?
Well done.. its time these goons stop being a sliding desk and be responsible. this is a victory of the people.
JPJ is a bitch as usual
Good ruling.
Stupid,corrupt, incompetent and zero knowledge based staff who knws only action when anything politely and lists is going on, it will never change
In this case, it shouldn’t be the Federal Government who should pay for the RM139k.
It should be the JPJ personnels that were negligent in doing their job should pay for the damages.
It is very unfair for the taxpayer money to be used to pay the damages.
Everyone should be responsible for their own doings.
‘It should be the JPJ personnels that were negligent in doing their job should pay for the damages. ‘ – Very right… Can’t agree more…
Everytine there is s negligent of a civil service employees the tax payer r responsiblev for it The money can be used for the benefit the public instead of paxing on the their behalf let them be respondsible n maje them more diligent in performing their duties.
thats the advantage as penjawat awam or kerja gomen, you do the mistake but the government has to support you. same as menteri2, buat hutang berbillion, but use our taxpayer money to pay the debts.
Typical blardy JPJ..they push it to outsourced Puspakom..thats how those dudes work..I tak tahu..manyak keta,u expect I check semua files,meh?
Can u imagine the “hanky panky” since the vehicle has undergone few ownership changes.
Ahlokekor…time to “flush” out those lazy JPJ dudes.We r funding these dudes with tax Ringgit.And your overgungho colleague Rafizi wants to implement GST soon,if Anwarkor gives go ahead.
Just outrageously pathetic Madani civil servants.
Who ended up paying Ms Hema ? Tax payers.
Insider job.
Normally these guys will be promoted and probably head of department by now. He will promote people with same mentality upwards leaving the clean guys at the bottom. That is how it normally works. That’s why the country is so corrupt.
syabas. only new gov this win for the rakyat can happen. wawasan anti Samseng jpj 2025
New SOP coming. Seller must tunjuk muka during car sale.
that’s the existing SOP, brader.
Just as many malaysian laws, no enforcement.
typical gov agency, no accountability… everything is not their problem. always pushing responsibilities. Malaysia MAJU
The JPJ will never improve as long as incompetent peoples are present there. It is due to improper procedures and corruption that result in these incompetent people being hired in the first place! No hope without purging.
So little compensation? If US can sue until become millionaire already.
Wonder how many more stolen vehicles with cloned numbers gone through the JPJ branch.
They need to be investigated.
We need to have more brave rakyat fighting incompetent authorities like the case.
Jamban PJ and Miss PuspaCon should be banned along with DAP, PUSS and Gunting Highland.
Penang JPJ is one of the most corrupt in the country, and i am not surprised by this.
Betul ….kereta exco negeri byk saman pun boleh jalan
You do realized the owner win our taxpayer money right? Gov didn’t even phased with that small change..in the end rakyat still loses
At least the money went into a rakyat’s pocket rather than some crony.
MACC can move in, hope Rakyat can furnish
evidence to MACC.
Now I know the JPJ is run by idiots.
get MACC in to investigate why this “negligent”.
This appears to be an instance of internal misconduct within the JPJ, where JPJ officers can be influenced or compromised with a relatively small amount of money.
Only 2 reasons she won. First, she have the money to pursue the case. Second, “JPJ had evidence as early as December 6, 2019, eight months before Hema bought the vehicle, suggesting that the Vellfire may be cloned, but did nothing”. There is many more that have their car seized and have no means to pursue and suffered heavy financial lost.
Another thing is, from this day onwards, JPJ’s staff will no longer flagged any car even if there are something suspicious. If flag, banyak kerja, if didn’t investigate, get sued.
There is a loop hole in the whole process, until it’s identified and resolved, it will be best effort basis (read No need to do) for JPJ, based on “luck” for us consumer.
Easy, whoever bypassed the system to register multiple names for the same chassis number and engine number is recorded in the system (the login ID). Trace it back to the user ID and you’ll find the perpetrators, most likely already transferred else where or moved out of country as he/she made huge profits by doing this for donkey years. JPJ should upgrade their systems to be as bulletproof as banking systems as there’s a lot of funds transaction happening in JPJ. This will eliminate corruption and makes the entire process transparent.
On a side story, one of my cousin was a victim of such clone car syndicate where he bought a Subaru WRX from a random seller (complete with geran sayur) and a few months later he was handcuffed into balai for owning a clone car. He had to be bailed out, pay fines and with bad record all because he was cheated into buying a cloned car.
Bro Levin, the tracing of login ID doesn’t work in Malaysia. If someone can “help” to make your saman disappear from the system, they can make the ID disappear too.
Doctor so rich better buy new car lah
Well done Dr Helma, teach them a lesson. bullying ppl while they themself did not do their job properly….this can be a landmark case for future cases & reference…. negligence in carrying their duties, hope the govt punish this civil servant negligence. appraisal should be zero…