THE High Court has postponed hearing an application for a by-election to be held in Jurong GRC to give a resident time to find a lawyer to argue his case, following the death of his counsel J. B. Jeyaretnam.

The hearing scheduled for Wednesday has been pushed back to October 30.

However, Mr Sri S. Vadivel Kounder, 59, indicated to The Straits Times on Tuesday he was having second thoughts on whether to continue his court action.

Mr Kounder, a part-time driver, had engaged the veteran opposition leader to argue his application for a by-election in Jurong GRC after the death of MP Ong Chit Chung in July.

The Government had said there would be no by-election and the work of the late Mr Ong will be shared among the other four MPs in the five-MP constituency.

Mr Jeyaretnam, 82, died of heart failure on Sept 30, and on Tuesday, Mr Kounder said: 'I've to reconsider now because Mr Jeyaretnam is no longer around. It was because of him that I went to court to ask for a by-election.'

Mr Kounder, a Worker's Party (WP) member from 1971 to 2001, said he was hoping his court action could pave the way for Mr Jeyaretnam to return to Parliament. The late Mr Jeyaretnam was the WP chief until 2001 and a former MP of the now-defunct Anson ward.

Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.