Gopal Sri Ram JCA:

This is the judgment of the court in relation to the appeal by the Public Prosecutor against an order made by Suriyadi J in the Shah Alam High Court when acting in his revisionary jurisdiction. The learned judge made an order discharging the respondent before us in respect of a charge brought before him under the s. 506 of the Penal Code.

The charge in question is as follows:

Bahawa kamu, pada 3hb September 2002, jam lebih kurang 4.15 petang, bertempat di Mahkamah Majistret Sepang, di dalam daerah Sepang di Negeri Selangor Darul Ehsan, telah menakutkan secara jenayah terhadap Ponaiya a/l Ganasan, secara mengugut dengan perkataan, 'You watch out, I will fix you, we fix you', maka kamu dengan ini telah melakukan suatu kesalahan yang boleh dihukum di bawah seksyen 506 Kanun Keseksaan.

(Translated Version:)

That you on September 3, 2002 in and about 4.15 p.m. at the Sepang Magistrate Court, in the district of Sepang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, had criminally intimidated Poniaya a/l Ganasan, by the threatening words 'You watch out, I will fix you, we fix you', and thus had committed an offence punishable under section 506 of the Penal Code.)

In making his order the learned judge gave the following reasons:

I now touch on the next poser. The charge had stated that Mr Uthayakumar had uttered the intimidating words 'You watch out, I will fix you, we fix you', with the applicant profusely denying uttering them. The learned deputy public prosecutor had vehemently stressed that no court would have been able to conclude that the charges were groundless when the facts were yet adduced. Unlike the laborious days when preliminary enquiries existed, and courts would have been able to come to some conclusion based on the recorded testimonies, the current predicament was certainly of no help to the magistrate. Much as I agree in part with his argument, I was certainly not denied of some other facts before me, in particular the ingredients packed in the other charges.

Without the necessity of repeating the above charges, in particular the second and/or the alternative charges, the incidents of insulting and distracting (section 228) had taken place during the hours of 4.15pm which was smack in the middle of the judicial proceedings. The supposed intimidating words, as per the section 506 charge, likewise had occurred at about the same time the altercation was taking place. Yet a scrutiny of the notes of proceedings of 3 September 2002 failed to reveal any utterances of that nature, at that time or place, the opportunity, or for that matter comments by the court. The notes of proceedings were more than sufficient to rebut the first charge. In other words, even at that early stage, prior to the commencement, let alone the closing of the prosecution's case, the charge was apparent to all and sundry that it was groundless.

This morning, the learned deputy public prosecutor has complained that the foregoing reasons of the learned judge do not represent the law governing s. 506 of the Penal Code. In other words, the charge was not groundless.

We are in agreement with the submission of the learned deputy. In essence, when the judgment of the learned judge is read as a whole, it would seem to require the prosecution to specify the mens rea of the charge. If that is the meaning of what the learned judge meant to convey, we must enter our vigorous dissent to this. It is settled law that the ingredients needed to be specified in a charge depends on the way dictated by statute. On a proper construction of s. 506 of the Penal Code, we are satisfied that no mens rea is required to be stated in the charge. We do not agree with the learned judge when ordering the discharge on this ground.

But that is not the end of the matter. Having perused the records most anxiously, we are satisfied that there are other grounds to justify the order. We do not propose to go into these grounds as it may affect any subsequent proceedings which may follow