Service of legal processes by registered post is conclusive unless otherwise proven, aligning with contractual agreements and statutory provisions.

The learned senior assistant registrar has dismissed the defendant's application for the setting aside of the judgment in default of appearance entered against her in this action. The defendant now appeals.

For the present, I am to decide only the question of the service of the writ.

The plaintiffs' claim is for contra losses suffered by them in share trading carried out under the defendant's account with them. In applying to open the account, the defendant agreed with the plaintiffs, in para 23 of the covenants and undertakings annexed to the application form, as follows:-

I/We agree that the service of any legal process which includes pleading, all forms of originating process, interlocutory application of whatever nature, affidavits, orders and such documents other than the aforesaid which are required to be served under the Rules of High 1980, Subordinate Rules 1980,Companies Act 1965, Bankruptcy Act 1967 and Debtors Act 1957 and the rules made thereunder by prepaid registered post sent to the address as given by me/us in the application form or the new address as provided in paragraph 22 and shall be deemed to have been duly served and duly received by me/us upon the expiry of three (3) days after the same is effected.

That paragraph provides for service "of any legal process" by "prepaid registered post" sent to the defendant's address and it provides that the legal process "shall be deemed to have been duly served and duly received" by the defendant "upon the expiry of three (3) days after the same" - which I take to mean the posting - "is effected".

The legal process intended by the paragraph is expressed to include documents "which are required to be served" under the Rules and Acts specified. There are two groups of such documents. The first group consists of named documents, namely, pleadings, all forms of originating process, interlocutory applications, affidavits and orders. They would include the writ in this case, which is an originating process.

I need to mention the second group in order to dispose of an argument advanced by learned counsel for the defendant. The second group is of unnamed documents generalised as "such documents". But the second group is qualified by the words "other than the aforesaid". The qualification means that the second group does not include the first group, and that is so because the first group, which includes a writ, is already included. The phrase is merely a piece of drafting fastidiousness inserted to avoid the unnecessary inclusion in the second group of documents already included in the first group. It does not, as counsel argued, have the effect of excluding the first group, including the writ, from the paragraph. If that had been the intention, the first group would not have been included in the first place.

Paragraph 23, then, as well applies to a writ and any other originating process as it applies to other documents required to be served under the specified Rules and Acts which are not an originating process.

Here then is a case of a contract which specifies the manner in which the process by which an action in respect of the contract is begun may be served on the defendant. The manner specified is by prepaid registered post to the defendant's address coupled with the deeming of service upon the expiry of three days. The case falls under O. 10 r. 3(1)(b) which provides, inter alia, that if the writ is served in accordance with the contract "the writ shall... be deemed to have been duly served on the defendant". There are here two deemings of service, one contractual in para 23, the other statutory in O. 10 r. 3(1)(b). The latter endorses the former.

It is not in dispute that the writ in this case was sent by prepaid registered post to the proper address of the defendant and that the deeming of para 23 and of O. 10 r. 3(1)(b) came into operation. The defendant, however, claims that she did not receive the writ and her counsel, contending that the deeming is reb