Anand Ponnudurai

On the judicial record

A High Court judge whose reported corpus spans contract, company, judicial-review and medical-negligence disputes, resolved methodically issue by issue after trial.

Justice Anand Ponnudurai sits in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), and the reported decisions in this corpus are civil and commercial, with contract, company law, judicial review and medical negligence prominent, the judgments typically framing the issues for determination after a full trial. Employment and fiduciary disputes feature, including an action against a former employee and a company owned by that employee founded on breach of the employment contract and related causes of action. Contract and commercial claims recur, including competing claims and counterclaims for breach of contract between companies, a claim for breach of an oral agreement concerning a petrol-station and snack-shop business, and a claim that a settlement agreement had been breached.

Judicial review is a distinct strand. Decisions concern the quashing of a travel ban imposed on company directors on account of tax assessed against the company, and a challenge by certiorari to the rejection of an application for the remission of goods and services tax. Land and property questions arise, including an application to remove a Registrar's caveat lodged at the request of the police and private caveats arising from an alleged sale-and-purchase agreement, and consolidated suits by a management corporation and purchasers seeking to declare a developer's sale-and-purchase agreement void and to transfer common property.

Medical negligence appears through a claim against a specialist for the alleged failure to diagnose an ailment correctly, and mental-capacity questions through an application for an inquiry into whether a person is incapable of managing her affairs by reason of mental disorder. Several decisions turn on whether a settlement agreement exists and binds the parties, and on the consequences where a party fails to honour it. The corpus reflects a High Court judge who resolves commercial, administrative and property disputes by identifying and working methodically through the framed issues, and deciding each on the evidence adduced at trial and the governing law rather than at large.