KUALA LUMPUR – The High Court here today granted leave to the owners of Crackhouse comedy club Mohamad Rizal Johan Van Geyzel and Shankar R Santhiram to initiate judicial review proceedings against Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) for revoking its business licence and banning them from starting any business in the city permanently.

Their counsel, Sangeet Kaur Deo, when met by reporters after the chamber proceeding, said Judge Datuk Amarjeet Singh, in allowing the application, set June 6 for the next case management.

The lawyer said her clients had withdrawn the third, fourth and fifth defendants from the judicial review application as the decision (in revoking the licence) was made by the then Kuala Lumpur Mayor Datuk Seri Mahadi Che Ngah.

Mohamad Rizal and Shankar filed the judicial review application on Nov 24, 2022, and named DBKL, Mahadi, then Federal Territories Deputy Minister Datuk Seri Jalaluddin Alias, the Ministry of Federal Territories and the government as the first and fifth respondents.

They are seeking a declaration that the decision to revoke the club’s licence was against the law and a declaration that the decision made by Jalaluddin, as well as the ministry to ban them from registering any business in Kuala Lumpur permanently even under another name and company, was unconstitutional.

 They also requested a court order to cancel the decision on the grounds that they have a fundamental right under the Federal Constitution to conduct business with a valid licence in Kuala Lumpur.

In their supporting affidavit, they said on Aug 17 last year, Jalaluddin had issued a statement informing that the DBKL licencing committee had decided to cancel the comedy club’s licence effective July 30 the same year and the owners were blacklisted for life from registering a business in Kuala Lumpur,.

They claimed that the decision had severely affected them as entrepreneurs.

Mohamad Rizal and Shankar also claimed that they never received any official notice or letter from DBKL on the matter.

Mohamad Rizal is also facing a charge for allegedly creating and initiating the distribution of videos that touch on racial sensitivity.

 According to the three charges, Mohamad Rizal was accused of making and initiating the transmission of offensive communications with intent to offend others via the Facebook application using the profile name ‘Rizal van Geyzel’, Instagram ‘rizalvangeyzel’ and TikTok ‘rizalvangeyzel’, between July 4 and 6, 2022.

The three postings were read at the Cyber and Multimedia Crime Investigation Division Office, Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department, Bukit Aman Police Headquarters, 27th Floor, KPJ Tower here, at 1.17 pm, on July 13.

The charges were framed under Section 233(1) (a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, punishable under Section 233 (3) of the same act, which provides a maximum fine of RM50,000 or imprisonment not exceeding one year or both, and shall be further fined RM1,000 for every day that the offence is repeated after conviction, if convicted. – Bernama