Abdul Aziz Mohamad JCA:

On 1 November 1999 the Sessions Court gave judgment in default for the plaintiffs, Mobil Oil Malaysia Sdn Bhd, on their claim. By a notice of application dated 3 January 2000 the defendants, Sri Minal Construction Sdn Bhd, sought to have the judgment in default set aside. The Sessions Court dismissed the defendants' application. The High Court dismissed the defendants' appeal. The defendants appealed to this Court. We dismissed the appeal.

As may be seen from the grounds of judgment of my learned brother Dato' James Foong, between the time when the default judgment was given and the time when the defendants formally applied to have it set aside, the default judgment was set aside upon the defendants' counsel making representations to the Sessions Court judge in the absence of the plaintiffs' counsel and subsequently the judgment in default was reinstated upon the plaintiffs' counsel making representations to the Sessions Court judge in the absence of the defendants' counsel. As my learned brother says, those two intervening events had become a matter of history and were not relevant to the appeal before us, as the appeal arose out of the defendants' ul