Wan Yahya J:

This is an appeal against the order of the learned President Sessions Court, Melaka.

The respondents in this appeal had sued for the repayment of what he claimed to be a friendly loan.After hearing the evidence adduced by both parties the learned President concluded that the loan was in fact a moneylending transaction and that, as the defendant/appellant had admitted both in his affidavit and in evidence that a sum of $3,000 was in fact borrowed by him, he gave judgment for the respondent for this sum.Subsequently in his grounds of decision the learned president expressed the view that he should have taken into account the repayment of $400 made by the defendant/appellant and therefore the judgment should have been for $2,600.

The rationale for this judgment by the learned president as in his grounds of judgment was that, although the provisions of the Moneylenders Ordinance would render the contract between the parties unenforceable under s. 15 of that Ordinance and correspondingly void under s. 2(g) of the Contracts Act, 1950 , the defendant/appellant had to restore the advantage which he had received from the plaintiff/respondent by virtue of s. 66 of the lat