Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has fixed Monday first of June for definite hearing of the suit filed by former Kogi West Senator, Dino Melaye, against the controversial Infectious Diseases Bill which has scaled second reading at the House of Representatives.

Galaxy’s Godfrey Eshiemoghie reports that the matter which was earlier scheduled for this Wednesday the 20^th of May had to be rescheduled after it became clear to the court that all the parties in the suit had not been served with the court processes.

The defendants in the suit are the Clerk of the National Assembly, Clerk and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Attorney-General of the Federation and the Inspector-General of Police.

At the resumed hearing, all the defendants except for the Inspector-General of Police, had no legal representation present in court, even though the counsel to the plaintiff, Nkem Okoro had maintained that they had been served the court processes in line with the order of the court dated 13^th May 2020.

Kayode Ajulo, who is counsel to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said his client had not been served, and that he feared any order of the court will affect his client, one that will amount to a breach of his right to fair hearing.

The counsel who said he was appearing in court in protest noted that he was certain the plaintiff did not explore all available means to reach his client to effect service of the process.

On this, the counsel to the plaintiff told the court that the Office of the Speaker had refused service, a situation that has prompted the current confusion and therefore applied to the court to give leave to allow service to the counsel of the Speaker right there in court.

In the light of this, Justice Ijeoma ruled in favour of the application for service on the counsel to the Speaker, while urging the plaintiff to also ensure effective service of the court process on all the other defendants to ensure the matter does go ahead on the next adjourned date, which is Monday the first of June 2020.