Mohd Hishamudin Yunus J:

This is an appeal by the plaintiff against the decision of the learned senior assistant registrar who had allowed the defendant's interlocutory application pursuant to O. 18 r. 19(1)(b) and/or (c) (that the suit is scandalous, frivolous or vexatious and/or otherwise an abuse of court process) of the Rules of the High Court 1980 to strike out the plaintiff's statement of claim and dismiss the suit.

The plaintiff is a well known businessman in Malaysia. He was until 31 August 1995 the managing director of the Perwaja Group of companies (after this shall be referred to as "Perwaja ").

The defendant is a wellknown steel manufacturing company incorporated in Japan. The defendant now trades under the name of JFE Engineering Corporation, having undergone a change of name on 1 April 2003.

In the present case, the plaintiff filed a defamation suit against the defendant on the basis of a letter dated 11 October 1995 written by the defendant. The plaintiff's writ was filed on 2 October 2002.

The material parts of the averments in the statement of claim reads as follows:

21. On or about the 9th day of October 1996, the Plaintiff's attention was brought to a letter dated 11th day of October, 1995, written by N. Otani as the servant and or agent of the Defendants by the AntiCorruption Agency of Malaysia (ACA), which was addressed to Dr. Akram Che Ayub of Perwaja Steel Sdn Bhd (PSSB). The letter contained the following allegations:

(i) NKK Corporation (the Defendants) never asked for any payment from Perwaja under the TAA.

(ii) That he (N. Otani) did not issue on behalf of NKK Corporation (the Defendants) the letter dated 17th day of February, 1994 to PRMD requesting for the remittance of the TAA fees and

(iii) The signature on the NKK Corporation's letter dated 17th day of February 1994 was not his (N. Otani).

22. Based on N. Otani's letter dated 11th day of October, 1995, which was written as an agent or servant of the Defendants, the Plaintiff was investigated thoroughly by both the Police and the AntiCorruption Agency (ACA) of Malaysia.

23. The statement contained in the letter in its totality with emphasis given to the passages aforesaid in their proper context, both cumulatively and separately and within the Publications as a whole:

(a) refers to and are directed at the Plaintiff;

(b) is untrue;

(c) were at the time of the said publication/report calculated to disparage the Plaintiff in his office, and/or calling, and in so far as section 5 of the Defamation Act 1957 was concerned, resulted in prejudice and special damages to the Plaintiff; and finally

(d) is defamatory of the Plaintiff.

24. By the said words in the report as a whole, the Defendant meant, and were understood to mean, that the Plaintiff:

(a) Has had wrongfully made payment to a company which has no connection whatsoever with the Three (3) Technical Assistance Agreements entered between Perwaja Steel Sdn Bhd and NKK Corporation of Japan and that Plaintiff was a party "involved in a gigantic fraud to cheat Perwaja ".

(b) Was dishonest and had conspired with persons unconnected with the Three Technical Assistance Agreements in order to siphon the sum of Yen 2,891,580,000.00 or its equivalent of RM76.4 Million from PRMD.

The defendant, on the other hand, in its statement of defence, pleads, inter alia, the defence of time limitation and invokes s. 6(1)(a) of the Limitation Act 1953.

Section 6(1)(a) of the Limitation Act provides:

Limitation of actions of contract and tort and certain other actions.

6(1) Save as hereinafter provided the following actions shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued, that is to say:

(a) actions founded on a contract or on tort;

The defendant's application to strike out the statement of claim pursuant to O. 18 r. 19 was filed on 14 July 2003.

In the present appeal, it is the plaintiff's contention that the letter of 11 October came to his knowledge o