The director-general of the road transport department (JPJ) has been ordered by the Kuala Lumpur high court to pay RM40,000 in statutory and additional damages and RM25,000 in costs to Ilham Madani director Hasan Azhari Hashim for infringing the latter’s copyright on a proposal to issue MADANI special vehicle number plates.
The judgement was delivered last week by high court judge Datuk Edwin Paramjothy Michael Muniandy. The decision can be appealed, and the JPJ director-general has one month to do so if he wishes to pursue an appeal, as reported by the Malay Mail.
According to a statement issued by Hasan’s counsel Rajesh Nagarajan, the suit was filed on January 15, 2025 when Hasan Azhari sued the JPJ director-general over the latter’s launch of public bidding for the MADANI special number plates. The dispute first came to light in public in November 2024, after Hasan Azhari, through his solicitors, issued a letter of demand seeking RM1.3 million from the government.
In his suit, Hasan Azhari claimed that the JPJ director-general had copied his idea and concept in his copyrighted proposal for the number plate. The businessman said he had conceived the proposal for the Madani special registration number plate series and had registered with MyIPO a copyrighted work titled “Proposal Paper for the Creation of a Special Serial Vehicle Registration Number Madani 1 to Madani 9999 for Registration in Malaysia.”
He subsequently submitted the proposal to the government to propose the issuance of MADANI number plates on several occasions in 2023. but this was turned down by the government. According to Hasan, although the proposal was rejected on policy grounds, the government later proceeded with its own public bidding exercise for the MADANI series when it launched the series in October 2024, with its poster containing similarities to his copyrighted work
In a statement of defence previously filed in court, the JPJ director-general had denied that there was copyright infringement and said the proposal in Hasan Azhari’s poster was different from the government’s roll-out of the MADANI plates as seen in its poster.
The JPJ director-general had also argued that the government had started using the Madani slogan since January 19, 2023 and that it was not a new word invented or registered as a copyright by Hasan Azhari, and as such, had urged the high court to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that Hasan Azhari did not have a valid cause of action as he was challenging the implementation of government policy.
Commenting on the decision, Rajesh said that his client had never sought to prevent the government from introducing initiatives that benefit the public, but was instead seeking recognition that creative works deserve legal protection and cannot be appropriated without permission.
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I thought a common man won a suite against the JPJ and that elephants have really taken to the skies. Instead some scumbag businessman is whining that the JPJ can’t let people bid for number plates. There will always be some people wanting to buy certain number plates while overwhelming majority would never even bother other than to get the cheapest registration done with whatever number was available at the time. The case must be appealed and that petulant businessman bankrupted by being made to pay both Direct General JPJ and the courts through heavy fines. Money was wasted in court days because those operating costs are coming from tax payer monies. Whats next? some ahole will try to claim a number plate with words ‘roti canai’ was their original idea.
there’s a chinese proverb saying when a powerful man fall from grace, even a dog can bully him. this is exactly what happened right now, anyone can bully the current PM.
In C-kingdom U’ll be jailed
suing the govt for infringement
such a greedy man who trying to get rich quick.
No pity for him when they appeal and he gets nothing.
He knew and betted on the word “Madani” being a special number when the government shared the name.
Who is paying? DG from his own pocket or use government (taxpayer) money? Will discipline action be taken against DG?
Ask for RM 1.3 mil and get RM 40,000 only. That’s 3.07%!