Indira Gandhi a/p Mutho v Ketua Polis Negara & Ors

Appellant(s): Indira Gandhi A/P Mutho

Respondent(s):

• Ketua Polis Negara
• Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM)
• Kementerian Dalam Negeri, Malaysia
• Kerajaan Malaysia

• YA Datuk Mohamed Zaini Bin Mazlan
• YA Dato' Faizah Binti Jamaludin
• YA Datuk Mohd Radzi Bin Abdul Hamid

• The appellant's youngest child was taken by her former husband in 2009; despite a civil custody order, a contempt finding and a warrant of committal against him, he was never apprehended and the child never recovered.
• The Federal Court had earlier ruled (2016) that under s 20(3)(f) of the Police Act 1967 the police were under a mandatory statutory duty to execute the warrant of committal, and issued mandamus compelling the then Inspector-General of Police ("IGP") to command its execution; it declined to compel execution of a related recovery order.
• The appellant subsequently sued the IGP, the police force, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Government for damages, alleging wrongful non-performance/non-feasance in failing to execute the warrant, which she said prolonged her separation from her child; the High Court dismissed the claim, holding (i) execution of the warrant was a public-law matter giving her no private right of action, and (ii) on the facts the police had discharged their duty and no malice/bad faith was shown.

• Whether an application to adduce fresh post-trial evidence (concerning the former husband's alleged use of government benefit schemes in 2025) satisfied the threshold under r 7(3A) of the Rules of the Court of Appeal 1994 for admission on appeal.
• Whether the public-law characterisation of the duty to execute the warrant of committal, as found by the Federal Court, precluded any actionable private-law duty owed to the appellant, and whether malice or bad faith was a necessary ingredient of a claim framed as "non-feasance" against a public authority.
• Whether the High Court correctly evaluated the evidence of police performance of the statutory duty, and whether the appellant proved causation — i.e. that any proven omission by the police probably caused or prolonged the separation or other loss claimed.

• The Court dismissed the application to adduce further evidence, holding the proposed 2025 evidence could not have had a determining influence on the appeal since it did not bear on the police's conduct during the material period or establish causation.
• The Court held that the public-law nature of the duty to execute the warrant did not, by itself, extinguish the appellant's personal interest or preclude a private-law claim, and that malice/bad faith was not a necessary element of a claim for wrongful neglect of statutory duty; the Court also found the High Court had given undue weight to weak, largely undocumented and post-action police evidence, and that its finding of full and sufficient police performance could not stand unqualified.
• Notwithstanding these findings in the appellant's favour, the appeal was dismissed because she failed to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that any proven police omission caused or probably prolonged her separation from the child or resulted in any identifiable loss; consequently no personal liability arose against the IGP and no derivative liability against the Government under s 5 of the Government Proceedings Act 1956, and the High Court's dismissal of the action was affirmed (though not for all of its original reasons), with no order as to costs.