The High Court has ordered a social media user to publish a newspaper apology to fashion entrepreneur Christy Ng within four days, taking into account his financial hardship regarding publication costs.
KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court today ordered a Threads platform user to publish an apology statement to fashion entrepreneur Christy Ng and her company in Malay and English newspapers within four days.
Judge Arziah Mohamed Apandi ordered J. Vikneshvra Rau, 36, as the defendant, to prepare and publish the statement to Christy Ng, 39, whose real name is Christina Mei Mei Ng, with the essence and content reaching the level of satisfaction of the plaintiff (Ng).
“The cost of publishing the apology statement shall be managed by the plaintiff, but paid by the defendant as soon as the cost is communicated to him.
“If the defendant is unable to pay the publication cost, the cost will be added to the costs previously ordered by the court, and if the apology is still not published by October 31 at the latest, the defendant must appear in court again on November 2 for further directions,” she said.
On September 15, the court granted permission to Ng and her company, Christy Ng Sdn Bhd, to initiate committal proceedings against Vikneshvra for failing to comply with a court order to publish a public apology in newspapers regarding a defamation suit.
The man was supposed to appear in court for the committal proceedings hearing on October 19, but he failed to do so.
Judge Arziah stated that the court also took note of the defendant’s financial situation after hearing his testimony in the witness box and found that there was a basis for the explanation given regarding his financial standing.
“The defendant managed to answer in detail regarding his total debt with the bank and related matters. Therefore, I find that the plaintiff failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was in contempt of court for failing to comply with the court order.
“The defendant’s failure to comply with the court order was not done intentionally, but rather stemmed from his financial situation and various hardships faced in life,” said the judge.
Earlier, when asked by Judge Arziah about his absence from the October 19 proceedings, Vikneshvra, who runs his own business including providing resume services, stated that he was experiencing severe financial problems to the extent that he could not afford to pay for the publication of the apology in newspapers.
“I offer resume writing services for a fee of between RM150 and RM300, and that income is only enough to pay bills and buy food to cover daily needs. The last recorded sale was on October 13, and since then, I have not earned any income,” he said.
Vikneshvra said he currently only has RM50 in his Touch’n Go card, alongside car and house loan repayments overdue by more than four months, and his house is even at risk of being auctioned off due to his failure to pay the mortgage installments.
Meanwhile, lawyer Foong Cheng Leong, representing Ng, stated that the defendant failed to comply with the court order and continued to mock the plaintiff as well as upload false statements about his client, besides violating a settlement offer purportedly amounting to RM1,000.
According to the lawyer, Vikneshvra also failed to file any affidavit to prove his financial hardship.
On November 25, 2025, Ng and her company filed a suit against Vikneshvra over allegations of publishing defamatory statements on his Threads account, ‘archnionverse’, which damaged the plaintiff’s business reputation.
On February 13, the High Court entered a judgment in default against the defendant along with an injunction order prohibiting the further publication of defamatory statements and an order for the defendant to publish a public apology in newspapers and his social media account. On June 25, the court ordered the defendant to pay damages amounting to RM180,000 to the plaintiff.
Although the defendant had published an apology via his Threads account on March 19, 2026, he has yet to publish the apology as ordered by the court in the plaintiff’s chosen newspapers, namely The Star and Harian Metro.