Abdul Aziz Mohamad J:

On the very day that the petitioner filed the petition in this case, which is an oppression petition under s. 181 of the Companies Act 1965 , he also filed a winding-up petition under s. 218 of that Act in case No. D2-28-412-95. In both the petitions, the parties are the same and the factual grounds relied upon are identical. The first prayer in the oppression petition, as is naturally the principal prayer in the winding-up petition, is for the winding-up of the first respondent company. The second prayer in the oppression prayer is an alternative prayer for the purchase of the petitioner's shares by the respondents.

The respondents, by the present summons in chambers in the oppression petition, apply for an order that the oppression petition be permanently stayed or, alternatively, that the petitioner be put to election as to whether to proceed with the oppression petition or the winding-up petition.

The respondents contend that the concurrent maintenance of the two petitions, being proceedings between the same parties based on identical facts and grounds of complaint, is prima facie an abuse of the process of the Court.

In submitting that the application should be dismissed, the petitioner seems to rely on the general proposition that where a statute provides two or more remedies to a person, he is entitled to seek all the remedies and ought not to be required to elect between them, and on two decisions of the High Court.

The first decision is my own unreported decision given on 21 July 1994, in Ng Seng Sun & 2 Ors. v. Ban Guan Hin Realty Sdn. Bhd. [Kuala Lumpur Case No. D3-28-39-90]. In that case the petitioners presented on the same day an oppression petition and a winding-up petition. The winding-up petition was served on the respondent company several months after the oppression petition.

The company sought to have the winding-up petition struck out. Two of the grounds for striking out were that the winding-up petition was a wasteful duplicity and that the petitioners actually did not require a winding-up. I considered the two grounds together.

In my judgment I summarized the essence of the company's submission as follows:

Intipati hujah pihak responden dalam dua kategori itu ialah bahawa, dengan menyampaikan petisyen penindasan terdahulu daripada petisyen penggulungan, pempetisyen-pempetisyen menunjukkan bahawa apa yang sebenarnya penting bagi mereka ialah deklarasi dan perintah-perintah yang dipohon dalam petisyen penindasan di bawah s. 181 itu. Walaupun, di bawah sub-s. (2)(c) seksyen itu, Mahkamah juga berkuasa memerintahkan penggulungan, tetapi pempetisyenpempetisyen tidak memohon penggulungan di bawah seksyen itu. Petisyen penggulungan di bawah s. 218 adalah bertujuan untuk menggendala dan menyusahkan Syarikat Realty.

Walau bagaimanapun, kalaupun pempetisyenpempetisyen sebenarnya mahukan penggulungan, Mahkamah masih boleh memerintahkan penggulungan di bawah s. 181 walaupun tidak dipohon khusus dalam petisyen penindasan.

It is to be observed that, according to that summary of mine, the company were not saying that the petitioners absolutely did not have the right to present the two petitions. The company's case was that, in the circumstances of that case, the petitioners could not have genuinely needed a winding-up petition as well and, therefore, that it was presented to disrupt and embarrass the company. Impliedly, to the company, it would have been alright to present two petitions if, in the circumstances, there was a bona fide need for doing so.

At pp. 7 and 8A-C of the typed judgment I set out the reasons why the petitioners argued it was necessary that they presented the winding-up petition as well. They had, according to them, a motive for presenting two petitions, which I expressed in the first paragraph at p. 7 as follows:

Melalui petisyen penindasan itu, mereka bermaksud untuk memulihkan pegangan saham sama banyak dengan keluarga NKL seperti yang wujud sebelum reso