Lim Beng Choon J:

[1] This is an appeal against the decision of the Senior Assistant Registrar of this Court (SAR) given on 9 February 1990 dismissing the defendants' application made by way of summons-in-chambers pursuant to O 18 r 19 of the Rules of the High 1980 to strike out the writ action instituted by the plaintiff and to stay all proceedings in the action pending the disposal of defendants' application. It is important to note that although in their application to strike out the writ action the defendants had asserted therein that they would rely on all the four grounds specified in the said O 18 r 19(1) nevertheless in his submission at the hearing before the SAR on 18 October 1989, the Senior Federal Counsel representing the three defendants submitted that he would rely only on the ground that the writ and statement of claim of the plaintiff had not revealed any cause of action; hence the defendants had not filed any affidavit in support of their application as they were precluded from doing so under subrule (2) of O 18 r 19.

Over a long period of years it has been firmly established by many authorities that the power to strike out a statement of claim on disclosing no reasonable cause of action is a summary power which should be exercised in plain and obvious cases.

[Emphasis Supplied]

and at p 696:

In my opinion the traditional and hitherto accepted view - that the power should only be used in plain and obvious cases - is correct according to the evident intention of the rule for several reasons. First, there is in para (1)(a) of the rule the expression " reasonable cause of action, " to which Lindley MR called attention in Hubbuck & Sons Ltd v. Wilkinson, Heywood & Clark Ltd [1899] 1 QB 86, pp 90-91. No exact paraphrase can be given, but I think " reasonable cause of action " means a cause of action with some chance of success, when (as required by para (2) of the rule) only the allegations in the pleading are considered. If when those allegations are examined it is found that the alleged cause of action is certain to fail, the statement of claim should be struck out. In Nagle v. Feilden [1966] 2 QB 643 Danckwerts LJ said at p 648:

The summary remedy which has been applied to this action is one which is only to be applied in plain and obvious cases when the action is one which cannot succeed or is in some way an abuse of the process of the Court.

Salmon LJ said, at p 651:

It is well settled that a statement of claim should not be struck out and the plaintiff driven from the judgment seat unless the case is unarguable.

[3] On the authority of the above case it is clear that so long as the statement of claim or the particulars disclose some cause of action or raise some question fit to be decided by a Judge the mere fact that the case is weak and not likely to succeed is no ground for striking it out.

[4] Let us therefore examine the relevant averments of the plaintiff in his statement of claim. Firstly in para 4 thereof the plaintiff claimed that on 17 September 1985 he was at the Melaka State Assembly building at about 2.50 pm to witness the DAP Assemblyman for Durian Daun who was to move a motion to adjourn the House to discuss an urgent matter of public importance. Secondly in para 5 thereof the plaintiff averred that when he entered the public gallery of the Assembly, he was forcibly restrained by a person unknown to him. He was dragged, punched and pushed out by the said person together with three other persons unknown to the plaintiff in the presence of the 1st defendant, Inspector Keong On Eng who despite repeated requests by the plaintiff, failed to apprehend the persons referred to hereinbefore. T