00:00The Kuala Terengganu High Court has dismissed a former student's appeal
00:04in her RM400,000 negligence and defamation suit
00:08over a school search, seizure of her phone and cheating allegation.
00:13Justice Yusrin Faidz Yusof upheld the session's court's ruling
00:17finding that Nur Nabilah Ahmad Zambala had failed to prove her claims.
00:21In October 2020, two students reported seeing Nabilah using a phone
00:26during an SPM trial examination at SMK Surah in Dungun.
00:30School officials searched her phone and found notes and answer schemes
00:34matching answers in several examination papers.
00:37Her marks were reduced to 1% for the affected papers
00:41but later restored following intervention by the District Education Office.
00:46Nabilah sued over alleged humiliation and reputational damage
00:50claiming an envelope labelled with a cheating allegation had defamed her.
00:54However, Yusrin ruled that the allegation was substantially true
00:58and not defamatory in context, adding that the school's internal communication
01:03was protected by qualified privilege.
01:06The judge acknowledged that inspecting her phone
01:08exceeded the school's express authority
01:11but found this did not establish negligence.
01:14He noted that Nabilah had knowingly brought a prohibited phone
01:17into the examination hall causing her own predicament.
01:21Nabilah was ordered to pay RM5,000 in appeal costs
01:25on top of the RM10,000 awarded by the Sessions Court.
01:28Arif Jilaini, FMT.
