Wee C Hong Jin CJ:

This is an appeal by the Public Prosecutor against the decision of the First Criminal District Judge in acquitting the respondent at the close of the case for the prosecution.The charge against the respondent was as follows:

You, Johar bin Abdul Rahman are charged that you on or about the 27th day of May, 1963, at 8.00 p.m. at the Ambassador Hotel, Meyer Road, Singapore, in order to the committing of extortion did put one Lee Seng Chow in fear of a certain injury, to wit by threatening to arrest one Lee Seng Kee for having illegally entered into Malaya and that you have thereby committed an offence punishable under section 385 of the Penal Code (Chapter 119).

The facts are comparatively simple.Lee Seng Kee who had gone to China in 1948 had apparently returned to Malaya in 1962 illegally.On the 25th May 1963 the respondent, who was an Acting Superintendent of Police in the then Federation of Malaya, went to the house of one Lee Seng Chwee in Muar, Johore, where Lee Seng Kee was staying.There he intimated to Lee Seng Kee and Lee Seng Chwee that he was a government officer and that he knew Lee Seng Kee had returned to Malaya illegally.When he was asked "What do you think", he replied "I am not giving you trouble now".

This visit set in motion certain events which resulted in the respondent on the 27th May 1963 i.e. two days later meeting Lee Seng Chwee and two other persons in Singapore on the roof garden of the Ambassador Hotel.There the respondent asked from Lee Seng Chwee the sum of $50,000 with the implied threat that Lee Seng Kee would be arrested if the money was not paid.

The respondent was arrested in Johore on the 29th October 1963 on a Singapore warrant of arrest and was eventually charged in Singapore.

At the close of the case for the prosecution the trial Judge acquitted the respondent and recorded his reasons for so doing as follows:

At this stage of the trial, on the question of fact, my finding is that the prosecution has succeeded in proving its case.However, on the question of law, I am unable to call on the accused for his defence in view of the two authorities cited to me, namely Vincent Lee's case and Abu Hassan's case. These two decisions clearly lay down that the exercise of legal powers, however done, can never constitute harm within the meaning of section 44 of the Penal Code. I am satisfied that the accused has the power of arrest in this case but that power need not necessarily be exercised in Singapore.My view is under the law as it stands, a threat to exercise a legal power of arrest does not constitute putting a person in fear of injury.In the circumstances, on the question of law, I am not in a position to call on the accused for his defence, and accordingly he is acquitted and discharged.

This appeal raises two questions: (1) the first question is whether the principle laid down by the two authorities referred to by the trial Judge is correct.The learned Acting Solicitor-General says it is not. (2) The second questions, assuming these two authorities have laid down the correct principle, whether on the facts of the present case it is applicable.The learned Acting Solicitor-General says it is not.

In Vincent Lee V. Rex [1949] 1 MLRH 647, [1949] 1 MLJ 296 , supra, the appellant, a volunteer special constable duly vested with all the powers and privileges of a police officer had threatened various persons who were smoking chandu with arrest.He was charged and convicted of the offence of extortion under s. 384 of the Penal Code. Murray- Aynsley CJ in allowing the appeal had this to say:

The offence of extortion is defined in s. 383 of the Penal Code. It will be seen that an essential part of the offence is putting a person in fear of 'injury'. In turn 'injury' is defined in s. 44 of the same Code.There 'injury' is harm illegally caused.It appears to me to follow from this that the exercise of legal powers however done can never constitute harm.

InHassan V. Public Prosecutor