Judicial review applications must comply with specific procedural rules established under O 53 of the Rules of Court, and attempts to apply general provisions like O 14A for judicial review are considered an abuse of process.

Introduction

[1] This is a judicial review application ('JR application') filed by 55 private institutions, ('the applicants') against the Registrar General of Private Education Institution ('the first respondent') and two others, for the relief in the form of declarations that:-

(a) the circular dated 23 January 2013 issued by the Registrar under reference TPT(BPPA)1000-05-08 Jld 2 (1) ('the circular') to all private institutions in Malaysia is ultra viresss 29, 30 and 33 of the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996 ('Act 555');

(b) the circular is ultra viresart 96 of the Federal Constitution as an unauthorised levy under Federal laws;

(c) the circular is ultra vires the Competition Act 2010 as providing a monopoly or dominant position for the third respondent; and

(d) the exercise of the powers under s 29 of the Act is tainted with unreasonableness and procedural impropriety and illegality.

[2] Besides the above stated prayers, the applicant had also sought for a certiorari to quash the first respondent's decision to issue the said circular

[3] Vide the said circular, first respondent purported to introduce additional conditions relating to the registrations for private institutions pursuant to s 29 of Act 555.

[4] Under the said circular, all private institutions were required to utilise the Student Applications and Registrations System ('the STARS system') purportedly owned and operated by Education Malaysia Global Services, ('the third respondent') for the purpose of submitting application for an international student pass to study in Malaysia on behalf of its students

[5] Under the said circular, the private institutions were required to pay RM1,000 directly to the third respondent upon submission of the application for the international student pass

[6] In a nutshell, the applicants had challenged the decision of the first respondent on the grounds of illegality, procedural impropriety and unreasonableness

[7] As at 13 November 2014, the instant JR application was already ready for hearing and all parties to the action had filed the necessary affidavits

[8] However, there is still pending an application filed by the applicant for interrogatories under O 53 r 6 of ROC (encl 17).

The O 14A Application

[9] On 13 November 2014, the third respondent has filed encl 32 pursuant to O 14A of the Rules of 2012 ('ROC'), amongst others, seeking for the order from this Court to determine the following questions:-

(a) Whether the first and second applicants have the legal standing to take out the judicial review application dated 30 April 2013 ('the JR application); and

(b) Whether the third to the 55th applicants have the legal standing to take out the JR application.

[10] In the event the first and second questions stated above were answered in the negative, the third respondent prayed for the costs of the JR application as well as the costs for encl 32 to be borne by the applicants

[11] For the purpose of encl 32, the following documents had been filed and referred to by the Court:-

(a) The notice of application filed by the third respondent dated 13 November 2014 ('encl 32');

(b) The third respondent's affidavit affirmed on 12 November 2014 ('encl 33');

(c) The applicants' affidavit in reply affirmed on 27 November 2014 ('encl 34');

(d) The applicants further affidavit in reply affirmed on 15 January 2015 ('encl 36'); and

(e) Reference was also made to all the relevant documents for the purpose of the JR application. These documents were listed in Tab "A" to the applicants' written submission.

The Law

[12] The third respondent sought to move this Court by way of O 14A of the ROC which provides as follows:-

(1) The Court may upon the ap