KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court has allowed judicial review proceedings against the police over Teoh Beng Hock's death.

       Beng Hock's family was granted permission to initiate the proceedings at the High Court here before Justice Noorin Badaruddin on Thursday (June 16).

       Beng Hock’s father Teoh Leong Hwee, 74, and mother Teng Shuw Hoi, 69, are seeking an order from the court to compel the Inspector-General of Police to complete the investigation within a month from Thursday (June 16).

       The IGP, the Criminal Investigation Department director, the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) and the Malaysian Government were named as the four respondents in their application, filed in the High Court on Jan 4 this year.

       In the application, Beng Hock's parents are seeking a declaration that the failure of the first, second and third respondents to complete the investigation into the death of their son within a reasonable time period had violated Section 20(3) of the Police Act 1967.

       They seek a declaration that the police were negligent and attempted to deny the applicants' constitutional rights as stated under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution, in addition to applying for a mandamus order for the first respondent (IGP) to complete the investigation into Beng Hock's death within a month's time from the date the verdict was delivered.

       The application was filed on the grounds that although three special task forces were set up to investigate the cause of their son's death, the investigation was found to be incomplete, based on a letter from the second respondent dated Sept 21, 2021, which stated that the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC) had returned the investigation papers to the IGP on Sept 3, 2021.

       According to the applicants, the investigation papers had been repeatedly returned to the first, second and third respondents by the AGC for further investigation.

       Teng, in her affidavit supporting the judicial review, said the police had failed to complete the investigation in Beng Hock’s death despite an appellate court decision in the family’s favour in 2014.

       Lawyer Ramkarpal Singh, who is representing the family, said the judicial review compels the police to complete their probe into Beng Hock’s death.

       Beng Hock was found sprawled on the fifth-floor landing of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on the morning of July 16, 2009, after giving a statement at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) office on the 14th floor of the building.

       He was the political secretary to the then Selangor state executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah, who is also Seri Kembangan assemblyman.

       On Jan 5, 2011, the Shah Alam Coroner's Court ruled that Beng Hock's death in 2009 was not due to suicide or murder or third party involvement, while the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Beng Hock's death on July 21, 2011, established that he had committed suicide.

       In 2014, a three-member Court of Appeal bench overturned the open verdict on the death of Beng Hock and ruled that his death was caused by the act of “person or persons unknown”, including the MACC officers who had questioned him overnight before he was found dead.