A complaint has been filed against Judge Mohamed Saleem for criticizing the Public Service Media (PSM) lawyer during an appeal hearing in the High Court.
The appeal was against a ruling on paying MVR 4.5 million to Artisan Pvt Ltd for works done in PSM in April 2018 and June 2018.
The work was done to build the rooms of the former PSM Managing Director Ibrahim Khaleel and Deputy Managing Director Mohamed Ikram. Khaleel is currently the Minister of Communications at the President's Office and Ikram is the Under Secretary for Strategic Communications at the President's Office.
A complaint against Judge Saleem was submitted to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) after he applied for a vacancy in the Supreme Court bench.
When the case was taken to the lower court, PSM initially said that Artisan Pvt Ltd had not done the works. But the company later admitted that the work had been completed. The lower court's ruling was appealed over the amount to be paid to Artisan Pvt Ltd. The work was awarded in violation of the Public Finance Rules.
Judge Saleem and two other judges who were on the High Court bench for the appeal hearings criticized PSM. Judge Mohamed Niyaz criticized the PSM lawyer for coming to court without completing the documents.
"You had said earlier that the report of the trial was not included among the documents. Now you are saying that you do not want to submit those documents and issue a ruling without those documents. Are you coming here just to do stamping? Should we just continue like this?" Niyaz said on May 15.
He also advised PSM to settle such cases out of court, as the lawyer wants to reach a decision without completing the documents.
"If you are serious and if you want to come to trial and prove something, you should work that way. We don't have to repeat. Trial is not a play thing. Then if you don't want to prove something at trial, don't come to court and just end it," Niyaz said.
Saleem, who spoke after Niyaz, said PSM had acted like a common person who hires an expatriate looking for work on the street to clean the house.
"Work amounting to millions has been done in a way similar to how a common person would find an expatriate near Zikura mosque to do some house cleaning. What are we talking about? How many cases have been received in this court before regarding such complaints against PSM?" he stated.
Noting that many such cases against PSM have been filed in court, Saleem said that although PSM is run with state funds, it is operated like a private company.
"Recently, we have seen in the media reports about the company's financial situation. We don't see any improvement. We see it as a business that changes ownership every five years. We don't see any documents about what the company did," he added.
Judge Hussain Mazeed, the third member of the bench, also criticized and advised PSM.
"Companies that are established to provide services to the people, basic services, are subsidized by the people's tax money. So the debts of such companies end up being taken over by the government. Meaning the debt is paid from the people's tax money," he said.
That was the final hearing in the appeal case. Concluding the hearing, Saleem said a decision would be reached at the next hearing.
