The court emphasized the necessity for the relevance of evidence in employment disputes, rejecting subpoenas for documents and witnesses deemed collateral to the core issues.

[1] This case was first fixed for mention on 15 March 2016. After directions on the filing of pleadings were given, the Claimant filed with the Court a total of eleven (11) Summons (Form O) dated 22 August 2016 and a Summons to Produce Documents (Form P) dated 22 August 2016 to compel the Company to produce certain witnesses and documents on 11 January 2017 but the matter did not proceed on that date. Eventually, the hearing dates of the case was fixed for 7 and 8 March 2017. On 25 January 2017, the Company ' s Counsels informed the Court that they have just been appointed to take over from the previous counsel and had filed Form B on 23 January 2017. Due to unforeseen circumstances the hearing had to be postponed on the application of the Company. The new hearing dates were fixed for 2 and 3 October 2017 but on that date the hearing was again postponed to 10 - 12 January 2018, and this time on the application of the Claimant.

[2] The Court during the mention date on 16 October directed for the witness statements to be filed by 4 December 2017. The Court then received a letter dated 27 November 2017 from Counsel for Petronas (the holding company of the Company) to request that the subpoenas to call its employees be set aside because the subpoenas were not served in accordance with r 19(1)(a) and (b) of the Industrial Rules 1967. Preliminary objections on grounds of relevancy and confidentiality of the documents were raised by Counsel for Petronas at the mention date on 4 December 2017. The Court then decided that a formal hearing of the application must be put in because the Company and 3 of its employees who were also summoned wanted to object to the Form O and Form P issued. The hearing dates again had to be postponed because the Claimant did not receive the documents requested and in view of the objections raised.

1st Notice Of Application

[3] Pursuant to the Court's direction, Counsel for the Company on 11 December 2017 filed a Notice of Application to set aside Form P (hereinafter referred to as "NOA-1") listing in it 6 documents. NOA-1 comprises the following:

(a) Notice of Application;

(b) Affidavit In Support of the application affirmed on 11 December 2017 by Shalini a/p Loganathan (to be referred to as "Shalini"), Acting Head of Human Resource of the Company;

(c) Affidavit In Reply affirmed on 8 January 2018 by Shalini on behalf of the Company.

2nd Notice Of Application

[4] Counsel for Petronas on 12 December 2017 filed a Notice of Application to set aside Form O (hereinafter referred to as "NOA - 2") issued in the name of Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin, Dato' Raiha Azni Abd Rahman, Puan Ungku Haslina Ungku Mohamed Tahir and Encik Syed Sheikh Syed Idrus Al-Habshi. NOA-2 comprises the following:

(a) Notice of Application;

(b) Affidavit In Support of the application affirmed on 8 December 2017 by Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin (to be referred to as "Wan Zulkiflee"), President and Group Chief Executive Officer;

(c) Affidavit In Support of the application affirmed on 8 December 2017 by Dato' Raiha Azni Abd Rahman (to be referred to as "Raiha Azni"), Senior Vice-President Group Human Resources Management;

(d) Affidavit In Support of the application affirmed on 8 December 2017 by Ungku Haslina Ungku Mohamed Tahir (to be referred to as "Ungku Haslina") Head, Environment & Social Performance;

(e) Affidavit In Support of the application affirmed on 8 December 2017 by Raja Iskandar Ariffin Raja Azman (to be refered to as "Raja Iskandar"), Head, Human Resource Management;

(f) Affidavit In Reply affirmed on 2