Ambrose J (with whom Rose CJ and Wee Chong Jin J agreed):

This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court declaring a conveyance by Ng Ming Yong, a bankrupt, to Lim Kim Boon absolutely void against the Official Assignee. The appellant is Lim Kim Boon, a secondary wife of the bankrupt, and the respondent is the Official Assignee.

The respondent raises a preliminary point: that the appeal was entered and the notice of appeal was served out of time. Rule 90 of the Bankruptcy Rules, 1897, provides that the time for entering the appeal and serving notice thereof on the respondent shall be fourteen days from the date of the signing entering or otherwise perfecting the judgment or order appealed from. The judgment appealed from was signed and pronounced on 5 June 1959. The last day for entering the appeal and serving notice of the appeal, according to the respondent, was fourteen days from that date, as that was the date from which the judgment took effect. As the notice of appeal was filed and served on 25 June, the respondent reckons that it was out of time by six days.

In reply to this objection, Counsel for the appellant submits that under r. 90 the time for appealing against a judgment runs from the date when a perfect and operative order is made, and that a judgment is not perfected unless it is drawn up, passed and entered. Counsel relies on the case of Re Helsby [1894] 1 QB 742 which was a decision on r. 130 of the English Bankruptcy Rules, 1886. This rule provided that no appeal from any order of the Court shall be brought after the expiration of twenty-one days from the time at which the order is signed, entered or otherwise perfected. In that case there was an appeal against an order of a Divisional Court, which was pronounced eleven days before the Registrar signed and sealed two engrossments of the order. It was held that time for appealing against the order of the Divisional Court ran from the time at which the order was perfected, and that the order was perfected within r. 130 when it was signed and sealed by the Registrar. Counsel also relies on the case of Re Harrison's Share Under a Settlement [1955] 1 Ch. 260. In that case it was held by the Court of Appeal in England that although a judgment dates from the day of its pronouncement it is not perfected until drawn up, passed, and entered. Counsel points out that although the judgment appealed against was pronounced on 5 June 1959 the judgment was not perfected until the order was signed and sealed by the Registrar. It is not disputed that the order was so signed and sealed on 19 June 1959. Counsel argues that the period of fourteen days allowed by r. 90 should be calculated as from 19 June and that, as the notice of appeal was filed and served on 25 June, r. 90 has been complied with.

In my opinion, the submission of Counsel for the appellant is well founded and must, therefore, be accepted.

I turn now to the appeal itself. The circumstances giving rise to it are these. Receiving and adjudication orders were made against Ng Ming Yong, sole proprietor of Anson Cycle & Motor Works on 13 September 1957. By a conveyance dated 28 June 1957 and for a consideration of $16,000 stated therein to have been paid to the bankrupt by the appellant, he conveyed to her a house known as No. 448, Serangoon Road, Singapore. On 2 June 1959 the Official Assignee moved the High Court to declare the conveyance absolutely void against the Official Assignee. The High Court did so on two grounds. The first ground was based on s. 51 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance. I shall deal with the second ground later. The relevant portions of the section are:-

51(1). Any settlement of property, not being .... a settlement made in favour of a purchaser .... in good faith and for valuable consideration .... shall, if the settlor becomes bankrupt within two years after the date of the settlement, be absolutely void against the Official Assignee.

(3) For the purposes of this section settlemen