This is an appeal by the Public Prosecutor.

The respondent was, on the 30th June, 1953 tried before the Sessions Court at Malacca on the following charge:--

"That you on 17th April 1952 at Malacca in the course of an inquiry

into an alleged offence of cheating by one Carvalho, intentionally

stated in answer to T. Hamilton, a Superintendent of Police, that: "I

saw the P.W.D. lorries and labourers dumping the gravel at the site

prior to my starting the task", and that you on 29th April, 1953 at

Malacca, in the course of the trial of the said Carvalho and another

before the President of the Sessions Court, intentionally stated in

evidence that: "I did not see any road material brought to the site...

I am sure I didnt see any of the road material brought to the site;"

one of which statements you either knew or believed to be false or did

not believe to be true, and thereby committed an offence punishable

under section 193 of the Penal Code."

At the close of the case for the prosecution the respondent was acquitted by the learned President who took the view that he was bound by the decision of Sir Charles Murray-Aynsley, C.J. in the case of P Kandiah v Rex (1953) MLJ 64. This was a recent decision of the High Court of the Colony of Singapore exercising its appellate criminal jurisdiction in an appeal from a District Court. In that case, where the facts were that the appellant made a statement to the police in the course of an investigation under section 123 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Chapter 21) of the Colony of Singapore and later, when giving evidence in the course of a criminal trial, differed materially from what he had said in the course of the investigation, it was held that as what the appellant had said was taken down in narrative form and that as it was not known what the questions were the narrative as taken down could not form the basis of a charge under section 191 of the Penal Code. But for this case, as he states in his grounds of decision, the learned President would have convicted the respondent.

The substantial ground of appeal is that the learned President erred in law in following the case of Kandiah (1953) MLJ 64 and that had he followed the decision in the case of Inder Singh v Public Prosecutor (1940) MLJ 174, a case that was decided in 1940 in the Federated Malay States there would have been evidence upon which the respondent might have been convicted.

No point was taken before me as to the correctness of the decision in the case of Kandiah (1953) MLJ 64 which has not, insofar as I am aware, been questioned either in the Colony or in the Federation. The whole point in this appeal is whether a case decided in the Colony of Singapore on section 123 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Colony of Singapore has any application to section 123 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Straits Settlements, which is the Code of Criminal Procedure in force in the Settlement of Malacca.

It is well established that before a Court of the Federation of Malaya should accept as binding on it any decision of the Courts of the Colony of Singapore it should be satisfied that the law of the Colony is in pari materia with our local law and that such a decision deals with the same problem as that which it is called upon to solve in the case in which such a decision is cited to it. As Willan, C.J. succinctly observed in Khoo Ee Liang & Ors v Lai Kim Tong & Ors (1947) MLJ 147:--

"It is no use relying locally on a case decided on the law of the

Colony of Singapore where the law of that Colony is not in pari

materia with our local law."

It would be useful, I think, to set out in full the relevant and respective legislation regarding the examination of persons by the police in the course of a police investigation.

Section 123 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Chapter 21) of the Colony of Singapore provides as fol