Abdul Malik Ishak J:

Enclosure 17

[1] This was the plaintiff's application for extension of time to file an affidavit in reply to the defendant's affidavit in reply. It was in the nature of an interlocutory application. Every application in chambers is supported by an affidavit. Every legal practitioner knows that an affidavit is a sworn statement which can be used as evidence of the matters deposed thereto. Roskill LJ in Alfred Dunhill Limited And Another v. Sunoptic S.A. And Another [1979] FSR 337, 352 observed that:

Affidavits are designed to place facts, whether disputed or otherwise, before the tribunal for whose help they are prepared. They are not designed as a receptacle for or as a vehicle for legal arguments. Draftsmen of affidavits should not, as a general rule, put into the mouths of the intended deponents legal arguments of which those deponents are unlikely ever to have heard. Legal arguments, especially in interlocutory proceedings, should come from the mouths of those best qualified to advance them and not be put into the mouths of the deponents. There has been much unnecessary paper in this case brought about by the inclusion of legal arguments in affidavi