JUDGMENT

Wilson J:

The plaintiff claimed in the Sessions Court for possession of certain premises under s 13(1)(k) of the Control of Rent Ordinance, 1948, the defendant having been convicted of offenses in breach of the law in force relating to Municipalities. He had been served with a notice to quit. The learned President held that there was a general discretion in the Court, and also a particular discretion arising from the negative and prohibitory phraseology of the opening lines of s 13(1), and gave judgment for the defendant with costs.

It would appear that he was influenced by the case of Chen Chi Ya V. K Nagappan, [1949] 1 MLJ 164 and the case of VEA Mohaideen v. T Mohamed [1952] MLJ 209. In the latter case the learned Judge, exercising his appellate jurisdiction, stated in his judgment that if it was open to argument that a discretion did not exist under the Control of Rent Ordinance, 1948, it was a case in which the learned President should have exercised the inherent power of the Court under s 597 of the Civil Procedure Code.

Mr. Nair, who appeared before me for the respondent, does not now rely on the decision in that case because he has discovered that decision was overruled by the Court of Appeal in Civil Appeal No. 20 Of 1952 noted in this issue at p. xxv in a judgment which has not been reported. In that appeal the learned Chief justice, in a judgment with which the other Judges agreed, said:

We have every sympathy with the respondent who was the originator of the trouble which resulted in the present proceedings but we are unable to override the express provision of the Control of Rent Ordinance, 1948, by calling in aid s 597 of the FMS Civil Procedure Code.

The former case related to Singapore Civil Suit No. 344 of 1948 MLJ 164. In that case the plaintiff claimed possession of certain premises under s 14(1)(b) of the Singapore Control of Rent Ordinance, 1947. This is the same as s 13(1)(b) of the Federation Control of Rent Ordinance and provides that:

No order or judgment for the recovery of possession of any premises comprised in a tenancy shall be made or given except in the following cases namely

(b) where any obligation of the tenancy other than the payment of rent, (whether under the contract of tenancy or under the provisions of this Ordinance) so far as the obligation is consistent with the provisions of this Ordinance, has been broken or not performed by the tenant and the Court considers it reasonable that such order or judgment be made or given;

The words "and the Court considers it reasonable that such order or judgment be made or given" clearly give the Court a discretion. However, in Singapore Civil Suit No. 344 of 1948" MLJ 164, the learned trial Judge stated, after quoting certain provisions of the Ordinance with which he was dealing, as follows: -

All these provisions are subject to this overriding consideration. Section 14 is enacted in the negative. It does not say that where this or that has occurred the landlord may recover possession. It says that the landlord shall not recover unless one or other of these events has occurred. This means that even where the landlord set up a permissible ground, he does not succeed as of right; the Court still has a discretion and will only allow the application if it is reasonable.

These remarks would appear to me to be obiter dicta and do not, in my opinion, take into consideration the fact that the sub-paras to sub-section (1) of s 14 of the Singapore Ordinance and s 13(1) of the Federation Ordinance do not all contain the words "and the Court considers it reasonable that such order or judgment be made or given." In particular, these words do not appear in s 13(1)(k) of the Federation Ordinance. In this connection I would draw attention to the decision of the Court of Appeal in Singapore in the case of Chen Chi Wei v. Khoh Keng Chong [1951] 1 MLRA 164, [1951] MLJ 204, in which the learned Acting Chief Justice made the following observations:

The next point taken i