Rajendra Navaratnam

On the court record

Rajendra Navaratnam's reported practice spans commercial and construction litigation, public-law compensation and tort, appearing in the High Court and the Court of Appeal and acting for plaintiffs, defendants and appellants.

A distinct strand concerns undertakings as to damages. Acting for a plaintiff, and on appeal for appellants, in litigation arising from an interlocutory injunction later resolved by consent order, he was engaged on whether an undertaking as to damages survives a consent order, whether the absence of an express judicial finding that the injunction was wrongly granted precludes enforcement of the undertaking, and how the finality of the main suit — dismissed at trial, affirmed on appeal, with Federal Court leave refused — bears on the entitlement to damages.

His construction work includes statutory adjudication. In related matters concerning Setia Utama LRT3 Sdn Bhd and a Siemens Mobility consortium, he acted for a defendant and then plaintiffs on an application to set aside an adjudication decision under the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012.

He also acts in public-law and tort litigation. In a Court of Appeal matter concerning Banggi Quary Sdn Bhd he acted for the appellant on a claim for monetary compensation following a successful judicial review, on whether the claim was properly one for constitutional monetary compensation or in substance a claim for damages, whether it was barred for want of proper pleading, and whether the damages had been proved. In a negligence matter he was engaged on a developer's duty of care to neighbouring landowners for the management of land and water flow, including alleged breaches of section 5(1)(b) of the Waters Act 1920 and section 25(1) of the Environmental Quality Act 1974. The practice combines commercial, construction, administrative-law and tort litigation. Several of the matters ask when a party who obtained or resisted interim relief must ultimately answer for it in money.