JUDGMENT

Taylor J:

This probate action raises the question of revocation of a will by a subsequent marriage, the testator being domiciled abroad.

The testator, who was a Shafeite Mohammedan, left a very large estate comprising land and houses and also moveable property both in Johore and in Singapore.

He was first married about the year 1900. He made his will in Johore in 1935. It is in the English language and it is admitted that as regards execution and attestation it complies with the Wills Ordinance. In 1941, the earlier marriage still subsisting, he married a second wife. There are children of both marriages, some of them minors. Both widows are still alive. The will was proved in Johore in 1944 and after the war a fresh grant of probate was made, in substitution for the Japanese grant.

The executors applied for the resealing in Singapore of this substituted grant.

A trust company acting on behalf of the second widow and other beneficiaries, applied for a grant of letters of administration, limited to the immovable property in Singapore.

An administration action is pending in Johore in which action some of the beneficiaries seek removal of the executors, as trustees.

The Johore Court has already decided that some of the main provisions of the will are void or inoperative; I think this was by way of construction of the will.

By a separate order of this Court the trust company have been appointed receivers of the Singapore estate, pendente lite; there is therefore no urgency by reason of assets in jeopardy. Pleadings were ordered and the two petitions were set down for hearing at the same time. The trust company are the plaintiffs and the executors are the defendants.

In the petition for letters of administration, which is the statement of claim, it is pleaded that "the subsequent marriage revoked the will in respect of the immovable property in the Colony" and that there is therefore a partial intestacy as to this property.

In their defence the executors plead that the testator was domiciled in Johore; that as the will was proved in Johore it is valid by the law of the domicile; that although this Court might decide that the provisions relating to the immovable property in the Colony are void, yet the will itself is good; that "the wishes of the testator as to his choice of executors should be respected" and that for all these reasons the Johore probate should be resealed.

These pleadings are loose, inaccurate and in some respects misleading but at the hearing I was asked to decide only the questions whether the will was revoked by the subsequent marriage and whether the Johore Grant should be resealed. Certain other questions may require decision at a later stage.

No evidence as to domicile was adduced but Counsel for all parties agreed that that the testator was an Arab; that he was brought from Arabia to this country in his childhood; that he lived in the State of Johore until his death which occurred in 1943; that he had paid one or two visits to Arabia and that he never resided in the Colony though he owned both immovable and movable property here.

It seems probable that he had a domicile of origin in Arabia but in the absence of any information about his father this cannot safely be inferred. He may have acquired a domicile of choice in Johore but whether he had done so at the date of the marriage is very doubtful; this point might, in certain circumstances become important. There has never been any express finding by the Johore Court on the issue of domicile and no finding can be inferred from the bare granting of probate because no finding was necessary for that purpose.

The questions where he was actually domiciled at the date of the will, at the date of the marriage and at the date of his death are therefore entirely open but for the present purpose it is sufficient that he was clearly never domiciled in the Colony.

On the issue of subsequent marriage I would say first that in my view the plea of partial revocatio