Mirdhulekha Muralidharan

On the court record

The reported matters span wakaf-land, contract-and-restitution and competition-review work, grounded in High Court and Court of Appeal judgments.

Mirdhulekha Muralidharan's reported matters move across land and religious-endowment law, contract and restitution, and competition-law review, argued in the High Court and the Court of Appeal. A distinctive decision concerns wakaf land, where the disputed questions included res judicata and abuse of court process against the background of the Administration of Islamic Law and the Islamic Wakaf Validating framework, and the role of the relevant Majlis Agama Islam. Appearing for the appellant, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and ordered costs of RM30,000 to the respondent.

Contract and restitution feature in related Court of Appeal appeals arising from a dispute over an oral arrangement, where the principle in play was that an oral agreement made gratuitously and without consideration is legally unenforceable, and that overpayments made by mistake are recoverable where cogently proved, with appellate intervention justified where a finding is against the weight of the evidence. She appeared for one of the principal parties across the cross-appeals.

Competition law rounds out the profile. In a High Court judicial review she appeared for the applicants seeking an order of certiorari to quash a decision of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the substantive question being whether the applicants had entered into an anti-competitive agreement; the Court dismissed the judicial review with costs of RM5,000. A thread running through these decisions is the testing of finality and validity, whether a fresh action is barred by res judicata over a wakaf endowment, whether a payment made under a mistaken or unenforceable arrangement may be unwound, or whether a tribunal's competition ruling should be quashed, argued at first instance in the High Court and on appeal before the Court of Appeal of Malaysia. The profile is notable for the breadth of doctrine it touches in a compact set of matters, moving from religious-endowment and land questions, through the common law of contract and unjust enrichment, to the statutory framework of competition regulation and the judicial review of an administrative tribunal.