Whitton J:

Mr. Macassey for the bankrupt has raised a preliminary objection that the main charge in the Motion is bad on the ground that it refers to an aggregate debt.The material part of the charge reads "that he contracted between 1 January 1952 and 3 June that year, an aggregate debt of $1,036,467 provable in bankruptcy without any reasonable ground of expectation of being able to pay it." This sum, contends Mr. Macassey, is in fact an aggregate of over 1200 separate debts, a contention which from the schedules attached to Mr. Alcock's affidavit of 13 November 1953 appears correct, although the Official Assignee seeks to justify the charge in the form as it stands as I shall presently show.

In 1925 in Re Chops Low Ban Chuan and Chuan Bee ex parte Lim Eng Hoe [1933] MLJ 286 it was stated by Barrett-Lennard J sitting as a member of the Court of Appeal that the practice of the Courts in England in dealing with this type of matter was to require that the debts, which are alleged to have been contracted without reasonable expectation of being able to pay them, be specified so that the Court may apply its mind to all the circumstances under which they were contracted, and reference to the cited cases shows that is so. In the judgment I refer to Barrett-Lennard J went on to express the opinion that "to charge a man of the type generally brought before us for his public examination with the commission of twenty-five offences against s. 114 is apt be embarrassing." Deane J who was also a member of that Court said with reference to the same point: "The section strictly speaking seems to contemplate that the charge against the Debtor shall be with respect to one debt, and is in accordance with the principle that a man should be called upon to answer only one charge at a time in order that he may not be embarrassed in his defence." In a recent case Re Mohamed Yusoff Meera Hussein & Anor.Trading as Federal Drug House [1954] MLJ 45. Spenser Wilkinson J, after reviewing the authorities, held that "in proceedings under s. 114(c) of the Bankruptcy

Ordinance a particular debt or debts which are alleged to have been contracted without reasonable expectation of being able to pay should be specified in the charge."

Against this weight of authority the Official Assignee has been unable to refer me to any case to the contrary.Quite properly, I think, he did not seek to rely on the unsatisfactory report of Poi Eng Lian v. The Official Assignee [1947] MLJ 126.The ground on which he sought to establish the validity of the charge was the practical one that, putting the matter in general terms, if the charge must be confined to specific debts a bankrupt might, if I may use the phrase, "get away with it", whereas if the identical debts formed the subject of a charge in the aggregate it could be established that he had contracted them without any reasonable ground of expectation of being able to pay them.At first sight this argument is not without plausibility.It does not seem logical that if, for example, in a state of insolvency I borrow $50,000 from A I may have to go to prison because it appears to the Judge that I contracted this debt without having any reasonable ground of expectation of being able to pay it, whereas if in exactly the same financial state I borrow $10,000 from each of A, B, C, D and E I may be able to show in respect of any of these debts of $10,000 considered separately that I had a reasonable ground of expectation of being able to pay it. But to appreciate the true position I think it is necessary to look further.The mischief, as I see it which s. 114(b) is designed to punish, is not having got into debt, for a large or small amount, without any reasonable prospect of being able to become solvent again, but the wrong done to creditors by borrowing from them without any reasonable ground of expectation of being able to pay them back.And if this view is correct it clearly follows that it is not the state of indebtedness