Adams J:

The appellant in this case was charged before the learned President of the Sessions Court sitting as Magistrate at Muar with the offence of assisting in the carrying on of a public lottery contrary to s. 4(1) of the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance No. 26 of 1953. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months imprisonment.

The learned President found that the police, in pursuance to a search warrant issued under the provisions of s. 16 of the Ordinance an unnumbered house in Jalan Mahmood, Parit Jawa New Village, was raided. During the raid the appellant was seen to get up from a table on which various exhibits were later found and make a bolt for it throwing away further exhibits as he went. Inspector Tharunalinggam gave evidence as an expert on the modus operandi of the Tikam Ekor Lottery and deposed that the exhibits produced to the Court were record of stakes of tickets of various denominations in the Tikam Ekor Lottery. He calculated the value of the tickets found in the record of stakes in the possession of the accused as $4,900. Inspector Tharunalinggam explained how he came by is opinions and pointed out the similarity and dissimilarity to the exhibits produced in the case to those shown in Gambling Games in Malaya by Dobree which is a statutory authority under s. 24(2) of the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance.

Mr. Sault who appeared for the appellant, did not really attack the findings of fact of the learned President and argued the appeal on two points of law. It will be easier if I deal with his second point first. In his very full and careful grounds the learned President makes certain findings of fact against the appellant and one of these was that the exhibits were records of stakes in the 10,000 character lottery; and he says:

I found as a fact that the exhibits were records of stakes in 10,000 character lottery because from the evidence of this expert it was clear that the reasons that he gave for saying so were clear and unequivocal and no one could quarrel with him. The exhibits were identical to those used in other cases relating to the carrying on of 10,000 character lottery that have been previously produced before the Courts in North Johore and this confirmed me in my opinion that the evidence of the expert was reliable.

The first part of this is taken from a judgment of mine in Ong Yap Chang v. PP [1962] MLJ 46 at p. 47. In my opinion this extract presupposes that the Magistrate has looked at the exhibits. The normal procedure in any Court is for the exhibit to be proved, for the Judge to look at it, and then to make up his mind concerning its relevance. There is nothing to suggest that the learned President who has had plenty of experience did not also do so. He could not have written that he found the exhibits to be what they were without having looked at them in the light of the expert's evidence. It is therefore clear that the learned President looked at the exhibits and found as a fact that they were what they were because he was satisfied that the seasons given by the expert were eminently reasonable and excluded the possibility of the exhibits being anything else other than what Inspector Tharunalinggam said they were. This ground of appeal, therefore, fails.

The other ground of appeal argued is that ASP Lim's evidence as to the issue of the search warrant P1 shows that the provisions of s. 16 were not complied with. Sub-section (1) of s. 16 reads as follows:

A Magistrate or Justice of the Peace or Senior Police Officer on being satisfied upon written information on oath and after any enquiry which he may think necessary that there is good reason to believe that any place is kept or used as a common gaming house may by warrant authorise any person therein named or any police officer with such assistance and by such force as may be necessary by night or by day to enter or go to such place and to search the same and all persons found therein and to seize all instruments or appli