Suffian FJ:

The plaintiff (respondent) is a moneylender in Klang. The first and second defendants were partners in a firm, Universal Car Agency at 22 Rembau Street, Klang. (They are not concerned with this appeal.) The third defendant is a housewife and the fourth defendant is an associate in a firm, Tai Wah & Co. at 13, Batu Tiga Road, Klang. (They are the appellants in this appeal.)

On 2 November 1957 the plaintiff entered into a written agreement with the first and second defendants to purchase for $30,000 the land in question upon which a house was being constructed (held under Selangor Grant for Land No. 13107 for Lot 404, s. 24 in the Town of Klang). The land was subject to a charge of $15,000 in favour of the Malaya Borneo Building Society. The plaintiff paid the first and second defendants $15,000 towards the purchase price. In January 1958 on hearing that the first and second defendants were in financial difficulties the plaintiff went to look for them in their shop but in vain, though he called there twice a day from 13 to 17 January.

After the 18th he noticed that the stock-in-trade in the shop was diminishing. The plaintiff then went to Kuala Lumpur to see the late Mr. Cumarasamy, his solicitor, who prepared a caveat which was presented on 24 January. Later the same day at Klang the plaintiff saw the proprietor of Tai Wah & Co, the late Mr. Kuan Thian Soon, who was the younger brother of the fourth defendant. He told the plaintiff that he wanted to buy the land. The plaintiff refused to sell it and said that he had caveated it. Later that night the plaintiff and three friends called at Tai Wah's shop at Thian Soon's request. There he met Thian Soon and the third and fourth defendants. The fourth defendant said that the first and second defendants owed him money and that he would pay $10,000 if the plaintiff would withdraw the caveat. The plaintiff did not agree to do so.

The next morning the plaintiff went to his solicitor's office in Kuala Lumpur to find out whether the caveat presented seven days earlier had been registered. It had not been registered. For five or six days he visited Kuala Lumpur every day to cheek. Still it had not been registered.

On 30 January he went to the Land Registry, where he was informed that the caveat had been rejected and a transfer of the land registered that very day in favour of the third and fourth defendants. The relevant memorandum of transfer had been presented at 10.10 a.m. that morning: it had been executed on 17 January 1958, but not stamped until 30 January.

The plaintiff petitioned to the High Court under s. 237 of the FMS Land Code against the rejection of his caveat. He cited the Registrar of Titles as respondent, but none of the defendants. On 5 May 1958, Shepherd J ordered -

(1) the Registrar of Titles to register the plaintiffs caveat as on the date of its presentation (24 January 1958), the caveat to remain till four weeks from the date of the order; and

(2) that after four weeks had elapsed, the Registrar was to remove the caveat unless the plaintiff had previously instituted an action in the High Court for the specific performance of the alleged contract between him and the first and second defendants or damages, the "action to be an action joining the interested party as second defendant" Within the time given, the plaintiff on 31 May filed suit against all four defendants.

Hisclaim was -

(a) as against the first and second defendants for specific performance of their agreement;

(b) for an order directing the Registrar of Titles to make the necessary memorials in the land register and issue document of title in the plaintiffs favour;

(c) for an order cancelling the memorial in favour of the third and fourth defendants made in the register and issue document of title;

(d) for an order directing the third and fourth defendants to deliver up the issue document of title to the Registrar of Titles to enable the necessary memorials in favour of the