Gopal Sri Ram JCA:

[1] This appeal raises an interesting issue of some importance. It has to do with question whether monies held in a joint account are held by the account holders as joint tenants or as tenants in common. The facts giving rise to this issue may be shortly stated.

[2] As long ago as September 1970, Koh Hooi Cheow (whom I shall refer to as the testator) opened a joint account with Bangkok Bank Limited in Singapore. The co-holders of that account were his sons Koh Heng Jin (the respondent before us) and Koh Heng Teik. The testator paid several sums into the account in question. Later, in the same month, the testator passed away. He left a will dated 25 March 1970. He named his widow and the respondent in this appeal as executors. The will made several bequests and left the residue to the widow. A few months after the testator's demise, that is to say, on 11 May 1971, Koh Heng Teik passed away. The respondent thereby became the only surviving holder of the account in question. He did nothing about the account for some ten years. Then, on 22 October 1981, he emptied the account. He withdrew all the money in it - a sum of S$346,505.09 - and kept it for himself. The testator's widow brought an action in the sessions court against the respondent to recover 1/3 of the monies that the latter had withdrawn from the joint account in question. She based her claim on an agreement entered into between the testator, the respondent and Koh Heng Teik that each shall be entitled to a 1/3 share of the sum in the joint account. That share, she contended, formed part of the residue, and, as the residuary beneficiary, she was entitled to it. The 1/3 share claimed by her amounts to S$115,501.70.

[3] The respondent answered this claim in three ways. First, he said that the sessions court had no jurisdiction to try the action. Second, he said that there had been an agreement between the three account holders that the survivor was to have the monies in the account. Third, he said that the action was barred by limitation. I will take each of these points in turn.

[4] Before I deal with the substantive merits of the respondent's objection to jurisdiction I should perhaps say a word about the court's approach to such a question. It is an established proposition that whenever a determination has to be made as to a court's jurisdiction, the truth of the matters alleged in the statement of claim or other pleading must be assumed to be true. I need go no further than to quote from Lord Diplock's judgment in Rediffusion (Hong Kong) Ltd v. A-G of Hong Kong [1970] AC 1136, Lord Diplock said:

Since lack of jurisdiction has the consequence that the court has no right to enter upon the enquiry as to whether there exist a state of facts which would entitle the court to grant to the plaintiff the relief sought, the jurisdiction summons can succeed only if it is shown that no matter what were the facts that the plaintiff would be able to establish, relating to the subject matter of the dispute, the court would have no power to grant relief of the kind sought against the defendant.

So, in the present case, in determining whether the sessions court had jurisdiction over the appellant's claim, it must be assumed that all that is set out in the statement of claim accompanying the summons is true. In other words, it must be assumed that there was an agreement as alleged and that the respondent held the testator's share in trust.

[5] Now, the respondent's objection to jurisdiction rests on s. 69(e) of the Subordinate Courts Act 1948. The section - with special reference to para. (e) - says that a sessions court "shall have no jurisdiction in actions, suits or proceedings of a civil nature to enforce trusts". The respondent's case is that the widow was seeking to enforce a trust because she claimed that he (the respondent) acted in breach of trust by appropriating her residuary interest, namely, the 1/3 share. The question is whether the widow was e