JUDGMENT

Steve Shim J:

This is an appeal by the defendant against the decision of the learned Senior Assistant Registrar dismissing with cost her application to set aside the default judgment obtained by the plaintiff against the defendant.

In this case, the plaintiff had, on 7 May 1998, filed a writ of summons against the defendant claiming a sum of RM1,978,490.44 with interests and costs for alleged breaches of a facility agreement. It is not disputed that the writ together with the statement of claim was served on the defendant by AR Registered Post on 25 May 1998. As the defendant did not enter any appearance, the plaintiff filed a Certificate of Non-Appearance dated 4 June 1998 supported by an affidavit of service with the court registry. On the same date, the plaintiff obtained a judgment in default of appearance before the Senior Assistant Registrar. Thereafter, the defendant, by a summons in chambers dated 14 September 1998, applied to set aside the said judgment in default as per encl. 7 herein. As I have said, this application was heard by the learned Senior Assistant Registrar who dismissed it with cost. Hence, this appeal.

The main thrust of the defendant's application in encl. 7 is that the default judgment was obtained prematurely having regard to the provisions of O. 12 r. 4(a) Rules of the High Court and s. 11.01 of the Facility Agreement entered into between the plaintiff and defendant on 27 May 1996. Now, r. 4(a) of O. 12, relates to inter alia the time limited for appearing in the case of a writ served within the local jurisdiction of each High Court in Malaya to eight days after service of the writ inclusive of the day of service. Section 11.01 states as follows:

11.01 Notices

(a) The service of any Legal Process and/or notices to be given hereunder may be given by prepared registered post or by personal delivery sent to the address specified below (hereinafter referred to as 'Address for Service') of the parties hereto and such Legal Process and/or notice shall be deemed to have been duly served after the expiration of two (2) days from the date it is posted and if delivered by hand on the day it was delivered.

The point of contention relates to the question of when time began to run for the defendant to enter an appearance to the writ issued against her by the plaintiff in this case. This centres very much on the construction to be placed on s. 11.01 of the Facility Agreement, in particular, the words underscored above. For the defendant, it has been contended that as the writ together with the statement of claim was posted on 25 May 1998 and deemed to have been served after the expiration of two days from date thereof, time would therefore begin to run on 28 May 1998. According to counsel for the defendant, in computing the two days stated therein, the date of posting ie, 25 May 1998 is to be excluded. Here, she relies on s. 54(1)(a) of the Interpretation Act 1967.

In rejecting the construction adopted by the defendant, counsel for the plaintiff has however submitted, in effect, that the key word in the part underscored in s. 11.01 is the word "from" and in this respect, he draws attention to the definition of that word in "Words & Phrases - Legally Defined" (Vol. 2) by John B Saunders which states:

'From' (a particular date) ... in the strict propriety of language means either inclusive or exclusive (of that date) ... courts of justice are to construe the words of parties so as to effectuate their deeds and not to destroy them ... Supposing that the word prima facie has an exclusive meaning, there is no rule that prevents us from interpreting it so as to be inclusive if the use of the word in the transaction leads us to do so ... Wilkinson v. Guston [1846] 9 QB 137 per Williams J at p. 146.

From the above, it seems clear that the word "from" can be either exclusive or inclusive in nature depending on the particular circumstances and facts. However, there appeared to be a number of instances in which the English c