Sproule AGCJ:

Defendant I was registered owner of a piece of land at Batu Pahat. He had many debts, and three attachments by judgment creditors were registered against his title.

Tan Bak Chay, the, objector, agreed with Defendant 1 to buy this land and pay off these three judgment debts. Defendant 1 signed a transfer to him on 12 October 1930. Its tender for registration was delayed until 15 October pending the discharge of the three attachments.

In the meantime, Plaintiff who had signed judgment against defendant 1 on a promissory note on 20 September 1930 applied for and obtained an attachment against the same land on 8 October 1930. The order of attachment is in the nature of a prohibition, restraining a judgment debtor from transferring or assigning his interest in the immoveable property attached.

The law requires (s. 275, Civil Procedure Code) that copies of the order shall be affixed on a conspicuous part of the property and on a conspicuous part of the Court house. It also has to be served upon the Collector of Land Revenue in a case like ours, and therefore registered. When all this has been done, any private transfer of the property contrary to the attachment is void as against the execution creditor see s. 278.

On the afternoon of 15 October 1930 the Plaintiff's attachment and the Objector's transfer were both presented for registration, but the attachment was given priority.

The Object or took out a summons of objection. Section 279 directs that the Court should then proceed to investigate the objection, treating the objector as a party to the suit.

The summons was in fact heard and investigated before the Assistant Registrar of the Supreme Court at Batu Pahat. This officer took evidence and gave a considered decision on 30 March 1931. He held that Plaintiff had duly posted the order of attachment on the land and at the Court, and I respectfully agree with Thorne J that in so doing the Assistant Registrar decided against the weight of evidence.

The Assistant Registrar also held that the attachment was good as against the transfer to the Objector. Once more I agree with Thorne J that this decision was clearly wrong. A judgment creditor can only attach what his debtor has and his rights are merely to stand in the shoes of the defendant with no added equities in his favour. In our case Defendant 1 had received good value for his land and had signed a transfer in the Objector's favour on 12 October 1930. Defendant 1's on 15 October 1930 had no interest whatsoever in the land and therefore there was nothing Plaintiff could seize or attach. Defendant 1 on 15 October 1930 could not oppose the registration of his transfer to the objector and therefore Plaintiff standing in Defendant 1's shoes, could not oppose it, either. The law is clear and has received local recognition and endorsement in the Penang case of Ng Boo Bee v. Khare Joo Choe, 14 SSLR 90 and the KL case of Boase v. Cluny Rubber Estates, Ltd. & Ors. 2 FMSLR 130.

From this hopelessly wrong decision of the Assistant Registrar, the Objector appealed to Thorne J who set it aside on 22 April 1931. Appeal was entered and for that purpose the learned Judge wrote grounds of his judgment which were filed on 17 May 1931.

In the course of these written grounds the learned Judge took a point which had never been raised or argued at the trial, and seems to have then entirely escaped the notice of all concerned. He wrote:

It is not, perhaps, free from doubt, but my view is that I had jurisdiction to hear the appeal against the order of the Registrar, since the Court is the Court of a Judge.

Appellant's Counsel has seized upon this point, and relies before us upon the sole ground that the Assistant Registrar's judgment was conclusive, that no appeal to the Judge lay, that the Registrar's decision, right or wrong, was final and that the Objector's true and only remedy is to bring a fresh suit to establish the right which he claims. He insists, moreover, th