Sharma J (delivering oral judgment):

Mr. Mahendran saw me in chambers on 10 January 1972 and complained to me of the difficult position he found himself in as a result of the Bruas Magistrate's decision in refusing to grant him an adjournment in arrest case No. 88 of 1970 which the Magistrate had fixed for hearing on 14 January on which date Mr. Mahendran had also to appear in the High Court Kuala Lumpur on the hearing on a criminal appeal. I was told that the date of hearing of the criminal appeal at Kuala Lumpur was notified to Mr. Mahendran in a letter dated the 2 December 1971 and that the Bruas Magistrate had notified him of the date only on the 17 December 1971 i.e. the criminal appeal at Kuala Lumpur had been fixed much earlier. Mr. Mahendran had written a letter to the Bruas Magistrate on the 22 January 1971 explaining his difficulty but the Magistrate turned down the request for any further adjournment of the Bruas case.

I thought that there might be a likelihood of some injustice resulting to the accused in the Bruas case and therefore after having heard Mr. Mahendran's complaint, I directed the Registrar to send for the file in the Bruas case so that I may have