Tuan Abang Iskandar JC:

[1] These have been applications to issue writs of habeas corpus filed in by the 5 above-named applicants, who had challenged the validity of their detention pursuant to orders made by the Minister of Internal Security, under s. 4(1) of the Emergency Ordinance (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) 1969 ("the 1969 Ordinance"). Their learned counsels had indicated that all the applications involved the same points of law that could impact on the eventual outcome of their cases and had therefore agreed that the legal points raised as representative of those in these applications and be heard together at the same time and that the decisions on those points by this court be applicable to the facts obtaining in all these applications which, as submitted by learned counsels, are almost similar to each other in material particulars.

[2] There were numerous grounds forwarded in the respective applications as raised in their respective affidavits in support thereof. The respondents had also filed in the various affidavits-in-reply, additional affidavit and corrective affidavit by persons who were acquainted with the facts and circumstances surrounding these