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 ask