Abdul Hamid Mohamad J:

On 9 April 1998, the plaintiff obtained an ex parte injunction order, inter alia:

3. That within 7 days after the hour of service of this order upon them, the Defendants shall swear, and serve upon the Plaintiff's solicitors an affidavit disclosing the nature, location and value of all their assets within and outside the jurisdiction, including (without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing) -

(a) the identity of all bank(s), finance companies or other accounts whether in their own name or jointly held or by nominees or otherwise howsoever on their behalf and the sums standing in such accounts whether such banks finance companies or other accounts may be situated, and

(b) any land and/or immovable property wherever situate in which they may have an interest, whether individually or jointly with third persons;

(c) any other assets owned by them or to which they are beneficially entitled including moneys, assets and any other receivable due to them from third parties.

Note that the seven-day period runs from the date of service of the order on them. I purposely made the order that way because as the order, being an ex parte order, by virtue of O. 29 r. 1(2B) of the Rules of the High Court 1980 (RHC 1980) would lapse at the end of two weeks from the date on which the order was granted. If, for some reasons, the order is only served a few days before the expiry of the two weeks, it would not be reasonable to require the defendants to comply within just a few days, considering that they are required to do something positive and not just to abstain from doing something.

The order was served on the third defendant on 16 April 1998, on the first and fourth defendants on 17 April 1998 and on the second defendant on 18 April 1998.

On 21 April 1998 the plaintiff obtained an inter parte injunction order which does not contain an order similar to para. 3 of the ex parte order reproduced earlier.

The two week lifespan of the ex parte order expired on 23rd April 1999.

The defendants did not file the said affidavit within seven days from the respective dates of service on them. In fact they filed their respective affidavits in July 1998 about three months from the dates the order was served on them. The plaintiff commenced contempt proceedings against the defendants. Leave having been obtained, the matter came up for full hearing of the contempt proceedings.

I dismissed the application on the ground that before the expiry of the sevenday period for them to comply with the order, the ex parte order itself had expired, thus there was no order subsisting requiring them to do what they were supposedly ordered to do.

I must make it clear that, in my view, the fact that an inter parte order was obtained on 21 April 1998 did not in any way affect the lifespan of the ex parte order. In other words, in my opinion, the inter parte order did not supercede the ex parte order. It is a different order arising out of a separate application. In other words, the ex parte order remained valid for a period of two weeks even though two days prior to the expiry of the two weeks an inter parte order was obtained.

The inter parte order also did not extend the ex parte order, as the inter parte order was a new order altogether. Neither could an ex parte injunction order be extended beyond the period of two weeks days. I agree with James Foong J on this point: see Elias Mooin & Anor. V. Dato' Zainal Abidin Johari [1997] 3 CLJ 455. Anyway, in this case, the ex parte order was never extended and the inter parte order did not contain an order similar to para. 3 of the ex parte order.

So, for all intents and purposes the ex parte order was only valid until 23 April 1998.

We now come back to the seven-day period from the respective dates of service of the ex parte order on the defendants for them to comply with the order. This depends on the answer to the question, even though it sounds illogical, how many days are ther