PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court on Wednesday (Aug 12) dismissed the Kedah state authorities’s utility searching for depart to attraction towards a ruling that had quashed its determination to stop the issuance and renewal of enterprise licences for pool betting operators within the state.
The three-judge panel chaired by Justice Datuk Rhodzariah Bujang, Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah and Datuk Azmi Ariffin ordered the state authorities to pay RM50,000 prices.
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Justice Rhodzariah, who delivered the courtroom’s unanimous determination, held that the state authorities has failed to satisfy the brink requirement underneath Section 96 (a) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 for depart to be granted.
The Kedah Government had sought depart to attraction the Court of Appeal 2-1 majority determination, which upheld the High Court’s ruling in favour of pool betting brokers, firms and their principal officers in difficult the state authorities’s directive.
The Court of Appeal, in its majority determination on Dec 12, 2025, dominated that the Kedah authorities’s determination to stop the issuance and renewal of enterprise licences for pool betting operators was irrational and unconstitutional.
In the bulk determination, Court of Appeal decide Datuk Faizah Jamaluddin mentioned the choice by the state authorities to cease issuing and renewing pool betting enterprise licences had exceeded the constitutional limits of the state energy.
She mentioned the choice was an impermissible state-wide prohibition of a subject reserved to the Federation.
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However, within the dissenting judgment, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk Azizah Nawawi held that the Kedah State Executive Council’s determination to not renew pool betting premises licences constituted a coverage matter that shouldn’t be interfered with by the courtroom.
She mentioned the choice concerned the state authorities’s discretion and consideration of the welfare of the folks of Kedah above the non-public pursuits of the operators.
Six judicial assessment functions had been filed by pool betting brokers, pool betting firms or principal officers of pool betting firms to problem the state authorities’s determination.
On June 20, 2024, the High Court granted a declaration that the Kedah state authorities’s determination is extremely vires the Federal Constitution, a certiorari order to quash the choice and an order for damages to be assessed earlier than the deputy registrar.
During Federal Court proceedings, counsel for the state authorities, Tan Sri Azhar Azizan Harun, sought depart to be granted and proposed six questions of regulation. He mentioned the questions had not been decided by the highest courtroom and that it might be to public benefit if the courtroom selected these questions.
However, lawyer Brian Foong Mun Loong representing the pool betting operators, argued that the state authorities did not fulfil the brink requirement for depart to be granted.
In November 2021, Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Nor introduced that the state would stop renewing native council licences for lottery retailers beginning Jan 1, 2023, as a part of efforts to curb social ills.
Speaking to reporters after the proceedings, Foong mentioned the Federal Court’s determination to affirm the High Court’s ruling which quashed the state authorities’s determination meant that his shoppers might now apply for enterprise premises licences.
“As the coverage has been quashed, technically, there isn’t any cause for the native councils to refuse,” he mentioned. – Bernama