Che Sa'adon Bin Che Yahya v Pendakwa Raya [Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM)]

Case Significance

A companion forgery appeal confirming that identifying the month rather than the exact date of the offence does not render a Penal Code charge defective under section 153 of the Criminal Procedure Code where the accused is not prejudiced, and upholding the substituted imprisonment-and-fine sentence.

This Court of Appeal judgment is the companion decision in a pair of consolidated criminal appeals arising from the same prosecution, in which the appellant challenged his conviction and sentence for forgery-related offences investigated by the Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission). The prosecution's case was that the appellant, in his capacity as an agent of the Government of Malaysia at a state farmers' organisation in Kuala Terengganu, had in September 2016 knowingly used a claim document relating to the purchase of fish with intent to deceive his principal. The offences were framed under the Kanun Keseksaan (Penal Code), principally seksyen 471 (using as genuine a forged document), read with seksyen 464 (making a false document) and seksyen 465 (punishment for forgery), and informed by the statutory definitions of "dishonestly" in seksyen 24 and "reason to believe" in seksyen 26. The appellant argued that the alternative charge was cacat dan tidak sah (defective and invalid) because it did not specify the precise date on which the offence was said to have been committed, invoking section 153 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Court held the charge to be clear and regular, and that stating the offence as having occurred in the month of September 2016 raised no confusion on the appellant's part. Finding no basis to interfere, the Court dismissed the appeal against conviction and sentence and affirmed the High Court's decision of 11 May 2022 substituting a sentence of one week's imprisonment from 11 May 2022 and a fine of RM10,000, in default nine months' imprisonment. Read with its companion appeal, the decision confirms a consistent approach to the sufficiency of a charge that identifies the month of the offence. The Court's approach confirms that the essential function of a charge is to give the accused fair notice of what is alleged, and that a charge meeting that requirement will not be struck down for want of a precise calendar date where the surrounding particulars leave no room for doubt about the transaction in question.