SALMAN AHMAD CHOWDHURY v Pendakwa Raya

Case Significance

Illustrates the limits of criminal revision under section 325 of the Criminal Procedure Code: a party dissatisfied with a forfeiture order under section 407 must show a genuine procedural error or illegality in the decision below, and the revisionary power will not be exercised merely because the applicant disputes the merits of the forfeiture.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns an application to invoke the court's criminal revisionary jurisdiction under section 325 of the Criminal Procedure Code in an immigration matter. The applicants — an individual and an employment agency — applied to have the High Court revise a decision of the Special Sessions Court dealing with illegal-immigrant offences. The subject of the complaint was a forfeiture order: the Sessions Court Judge had, following a failure to comply with Regulation 39 of the Immigration Regulations 1963, ordered the forfeiture of cash money found on the premises pursuant to section 407 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The applicants argued that the money was legitimate business money, the agency being unable to carry on its business without it, and the matter engaged the question of what constitutes "property" for the purposes of section 407, by reference to Court of Appeal authority holding that where money is not illegally obtained a forfeiture order should not be made. The revisionary jurisdiction, however, is a supervisory one, exercised to correct a decision that is wrong in law or occasions a failure of justice, and it is engaged where there is a demonstrable procedural error rather than as a general avenue of appeal. Having examined the proceedings, the court found no procedural error on the part of the Sessions Court Judge that would warrant its intervention, and it dismissed the review application. The judgment is a useful illustration of the limits of criminal revision under section 325 of the Criminal Procedure Code: a party dissatisfied with a forfeiture order under section 407 must show a genuine procedural error or illegality in the decision below, and the revisionary power will not be exercised merely because the applicant disputes the merits of the forfeiture or the characterisation of the money seized.