LIM KIM CHIN v RAUB DURIAN MANSION SDN BHD

Case Significance

Illustrates the High Court's supervisory and revisionary jurisdiction under section 33 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964: where a Sessions Court makes an order after the plaintiff has already withdrawn the action, so that no live matter remained, the order is liable to be set aside on revision.

This High Court decision at Temerloh concerns a defendant's appeal against a Sessions Court's refusal to strike out an action, and it is notable for the court's use of its revisionary jurisdiction. The respondent company had sued the appellant — a fruit trader — and another company in the Sessions Court, and the appellant had applied to strike out that action. The Sessions Court had refused the striking-out application. On appeal, however, the High Court identified a more fundamental problem with what had happened below: before the Sessions Court Judge delivered the decision on the striking-out application under Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012, the plaintiff had already withdrawn its action. The consequence, in the court's analysis, was that the Sessions Court Judge's order was invalid, because there was no longer a live action before the Sessions Court on which such an order could operate. The court held that section 28(1)(c) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 applied, and it invoked its revisionary jurisdiction under section 33 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 to correct the position. On that footing the court set aside the Sessions Court Judge's order. Delivered by Roslan bin Mat Nor J, the judgment is a useful illustration of the High Court's supervisory and revisionary jurisdiction over the subordinate courts: where a Sessions Court makes an order in circumstances in which it no longer had a live matter before it — such as after the plaintiff has withdrawn the action — the order is liable to be set aside, and the High Court may act under section 33 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 to put right an order made without a proper foundation. The decision is a reminder that the withdrawal of an action removes the very subject matter on which an interlocutory order can bite, so that a court which proceeds to rule on a matter no longer before it acts without a foundation, and that the revisionary power exists precisely to correct such orders where an ordinary appeal might not squarely reach the defect.