Lim Beng Choon J:

The plaintiffs commenced an action against the twelve defendants on 26 August 1989 by writ accompanied by a statement of claim. They prayed for 9 reliefs but for the purpose of this judgment I need only mention 4 of the more important reliefs namely:

(i) A declaration that the 1st to 9th defendants and each of them were at all material times, and are, not members of the People's Progressive Party of Malaysia (the PPP);

(ii) a declaration that the appointment of the 1st to 9th defendants and each of them as office bearers of the PPP is null and void and ultra vires the rules of the PPP;

(iii) that the 1st to 9th defendants be restrained from acting or holding out as office bearers and/or interfering with the affairs of the PPP until the determination of this suit or further order;

(iv) a declaration that the 10th and 12th defendants or each of them having resigned from the respective posts to which they were elected at the Trienniel Delegate Conference held in September 1988 are no longer the office bearers of PPP.

On 28 August 1989 the plaintiffs made an application by way of summons in chambers (ex parte) for:

An injunction restraining the 1st to 9th defendants and each of them from holding out and claiming to be members of the People's Progressive Party of Malaysia and/or from holding any principal posts of office bearers of, and representing the People's Progressive Party of Malaysia and an injunction restraining all the defendants and each of them and/or from conducting and/or interfering with the affairs, control and management of the People's Progressive Party of Malaysia and/or convening any meeting or extraordinary delegates conference of the People's Progressive Party of Malaysia until the determination of this suit of further order of this Honourable Court.

From the averments in the plaintiffs' statement of claim and their assertions contained in the supporting affidavit affirmed by the 1st plaintiff on 27 August 1989 (encl. 5), the allegations of the plaintiffs against the defendants may be briefly summarised as follows:

In or about the month of December 1988 or sometime prior to that the 1st defendant had secret discussions with the 10th defendant, the then president of PPP. Apparently as a result of the discussions a meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of PPP was convened on a very short notice of 2 days and in that meeting held on 14 December 1988 the following resolutions were passed:

(a) the 10th defendant, the national president, would step down and in his place the 1st defendant, Dato' Mak Hon Kam, be appointed as the president of PPP;

(b) the 11th defendant would step down as secretary-general and his post would be taken over by the 2nd defendant;

(c) Mr. S.R. Chandran would step down as treasurer-general and the 3rd defendant would be taking over the post;

(d) Mr. Chan Yoon Onn and Leng Hoo Keong, the two vice-presidents, would be replaced by 4th and 5th defendants respectively;

(e) the membership of CEC was allegedly expanded to include the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th defendants.

The 1st plaintiff alleged that he protested these appointments because the 1st to 9th defendants were not only non-members of PPP but at the same time they were members of Malaysian Chinese Association (the MCA) especially the 1st and 2nd defendants. Their admission as members of PPP and their appointment as office bearers were ultra vires the rules of the PPP. Furthermore according to the rules of PPP neither the CEC nor the president has the power or authority to arbitrarily and unilaterally hand over the control and management of PPP to strangers. Because of his objection the defendants indicated that they would expel him from the party. To achieve this objective the defendants convened a meeting of PPP to regularise all the unlawful acts they had been perpetrating with regard to PPP and at that meeting the 1st plaintiff was accordingly expelled. The 1st plaintiff alleged that if the defendant