R. Ganavathy Naidu a/l N. Rasu

On the court record

The reported matters concentrate on motor-insurance and road-traffic liability under the Road Transport Act, with insolvency work, grounded in the judgments rather than any ranking.

R. Ganavathy Naidu a/l N. Rasu's reported matters are concentrated in motor-insurance and road-traffic litigation, with insolvency work alongside, argued in the High Court and the Court of Appeal. A recurring theme is the operation of section 96 of the Road Transport Act 1987, which governs an insurer's liability to satisfy a judgment against an insured. In one Court of Appeal matter the question was whether the judgment creditors could execute a judgment without first obtaining a declaration against the insurer by way of a recovery action, and whether the declaratory order complied with section 96; appearing for the respondents, the Court found no basis for appellate intervention, dismissed the appeal, affirmed the High Court and ordered costs of RM35,000.

A related section 96 appeal concerned a so-called cloned car, where the original vehicle had been written off more than five years earlier but the road-transport records had not been updated and insurance had continued to be renewed, raising whether the insurer remained liable after a collision. Appearing for the appellant, the Court held that a section 96(3) declaration is meant for insurers and not for registered users, allowed the appeal and set aside the High Court decision with costs of RM30,000 here and below.

Road-accident and insolvency work complete the profile. In a civil appeal arising from a road accident where the Sessions Court had dismissed the plaintiff's claim and allowed the defendant's counterclaim, he appeared for the appellant, and the appeal was partly allowed with costs. In a winding-up matter under the Companies Act 2016 he appeared for a respondent, where the Court allowed the applicant's application. A thread across these decisions is the allocation of responsibility for loss on the roads and the statutory machinery of insurer liability, together with the enforcement of corporate debts, argued in the High Court and before the Court of Appeal of Malaysia.