Mohd. Azmi SCJ:

This was an appeal against the decision of Anuar J given at Kuala Lumpur on 8 February 1990, whereby the Court made a receiving and adjudicating order against the appellant.

The only ground of appeal was that the bankruptcy notice dated 8 June 1988 and issued on the same date by registration No. 3881 of 1988, was invalid and a nullity ab initio, and consequently the creditor's petition should have been struck out. Both here and in the Court below, the appellant relied on the decision of this Court in Low Mun v. Chung Khiaw Bank Ltd.[1987] CLJ 172 (Rep) which held that the demand for payment in the notice must not only be quantified but also be the correct sum owing as at the date of notice. The learned Judge considered the authority, and found that it did not assist the judgment debtor.

In the body of the bankruptcy notice, the judgment creditor (respondent) had demanded payment within 7 days, a specified sum of RM47,449.45 cts. In the paragraph between the date of the bankruptcy notice (8 June 1988) and the date of issue, the following particulars were supplied to show how the claim was arrived at:

Judgment sum RM40,992.64

Add: Interest at 0.065% per day on the

sum of RM33,215 from 1 December

1986 to 28 May 1987 (179 days) RM 3,864.57

Add: Interest at the rate of 8% per annum

on the sum of RM33,215 from

29 May 1987 to 31 March 1988

(308 days) RM 2,242.24

Add: Cost RM 350.00

Amount owing as at 31 March 1988 RM47,449.45

As for the period after 31 March 1988 the following further particulars of unspecified sum on interest were appended:

Plus further interest thereon at the rate of 8% per annum on the sum of RM33,215 from 1 April 1988 to date of full realisation or date of adjudicating and/or receiving orders.

According to the learned Judge in his grounds of judgment, on the date when the creditor's petition was heard, he had allowed an application by Counsel for the creditor to waive the claim for interest after 31 March 1988, thereby limiting the demand on payment of interest only up to that date.

In our view, any reasonable person reading the bankruptcy notice should be left in no doubt at all that the amount which the appellant had to pay to avoid the commission of an act of bankruptcy under s. 3(1)(i) of the Bankruptcy Act 1967, was the quantified sum of RM47,449.45 cts. There was no room for dispute that on 8 June 1988, the said sum claimed in the body of the bankruptcy notice was capable of being made the subject of execution. The notice was clear and unequivocal. We were therefore unable to appreciate the argument of Counsel for the appellant that the bankruptcy notice was bad in law. The fact that other information was given in the notice would not render the notice bad in law, so long as the amount demanded for payment within the seven days had been quantified and was unequivocal. We were of the view that even if the unspecified sum on further interest from 1 April 1988 had not been waived or abandoned by the judgment creditor, the bankruptcy notice would have remained valid, since the unspecified sum was never included in the amount claimed in the body of the bankruptcy notice.

Much had been said about the requirement that the amount quantified in the body of the notice must be the correct sum owing as at the date of the bankruptcy notice. The question in this appeal was, was a sum less than the amount that should be actually owing as at the date of the issue of the notice, an incorrect sum for the validity of the notice? Obviously not. It could be a lesser amount than the sum actually owing and capable of being made the subject of execution at the date of issue of the notice. In the present case, the quantified sum demanded for payment within seven days (up to 31 March 1988), though less than the amount actually owing on the date of issue of the bankruptcy notice (8 June 1988), was not a fatal defect. Where the date of issue of the notice by the Registrar is the same as the date named in the n