Thomson CJ:

I agree with what my Lord has said.

One cannot help feeling a certain amount of sympathy for the appellant because the case is full of grounds for suspicion. For myself I am not prepared to say that had I tried it I would necessarily have come to the same conclusion as the trial Judge. Nevertheless considering the trial Judge's judgment in the light of the authorities which have been quoted by my Lord, so far as I understand them, I can find no misdirection, no error in law, no defect in reasoning which would justify this Court in interfering.

I therefore agree with the course proposed by my Lord that the appeal should be dismissed with costs.

JUDGMENT

Good JA:

This is an appeal from a decision of Azmi J dismissing an action brought by the appellant in the High Court at Ipoh. The proceedings arose out of the transfer of a share in a piece of land in the Mukim of Ulu Kinta by the first respondent to the second respondent.

The facts are simple and can be stated shortly. The first respondent became the registered owner of a 160/786ths undivided share in the land by purchase in 1955. The consideration was $6,000 and the respondents say that they put up $3,000 each. According to the respondents the reason for the first respondent becoming registered in his own name as proprietor of the share was that the second respondent was then a schoolboy of 18 and neither of them knew of the provisions of the Land Code enabling any person aged 18 and upwards who is domiciled in Asia to be a registered proprietor of land.

On 4 July 1958, the appellant obtained a judgment against the first respondent for $1,913 in the Ipoh Sessions Court. On 9 July the first respondent executed a memorandum of transfer of his share in the land in favour of the second respondent. The memorandum was registered on the following day, which had the effect of making the second respondent the registered proprietor. The consideration stated in the memorandum was $6,000, which was explained in evidence by both the respondents as consisting of the $3,000 paid by the second respondent in 1955 and a further $3,000 which he paid to the first respondent in February 1958 with the object of buying him out.

The effect of this transaction was to deprive the appellant of the opportunity of executing his judgment against the first respondent's share in the land, for having obtained an order for execution from the Sessions Court which he presented to the Registrar of Titles on 12 July 1958, he was met with the information that the first respondent's interest in the land had ceased to exist two days previously. On 1 October 1958, he commenced these proceedings for a declaration that the transfer of the first respondent's interest to the second respondent was fraudulent as against him and for consequential reliefs to enable him to proceed to execution over the land as against the first respondent.

In the event the learned trial Judge, after giving the most careful consideration to the evidence, made the following findings of fact: firstly, that while the first respondent had acted fraudulently the second respondent was not a party to the fraud; and secondly, that the second respondent had paid the full consideration for the purchase of the land.

At the hearing of this appeal yesterday Mr. Sharma for the appellant analysed the evidence with characteristic thoroughness and urged this Court to say that in all the circumstances, if the proper inferences had been drawn from the evidence, the learned trial Judge ought to have found that there was collusion between the respondents to execute a fraudulent transfer and further, that on the balance of probability the transfer was made without consideration.

This Court has often to consider the question of interference with the findings of fact of a trial Judge. It is not, in my opinion, necessary to repeat the passages from the notes of evidence to which our attention was drawn by Mr. Sharma or to quote again the