Yong J:

This is an appeal against the decision of the Commissioner of the Federal Capital of Kuala Lumpur assessing the appellants' holdings comprised in Lots 205 and 207, s. 19, Jalan Weld, Kuala Lumpur at the annual value of $54,000.

At the hearing the respondent raised an important preliminary objection contending that since the appellants had not complied with the conditions of s. 44 of the Town Boards Enactment (Cap. 137) this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain this appeal. The relevant parts of s. 44 read:-

(i) Any person who ... is dissatisfied with the decision of the Board.. may appeal to the Supreme Court: provided that with the presentation of the petition of appeal there shall be paid into Court the amount of the rate appealed against.

(ii) Every such appeal shall be commenced within fifteen days of the date of the certificate of the Board....

(iii)The Chairman shall be the respondent in any appeal under this section.

(iv)Every such appeal shall be heard before the Court of a Judge and the decision of such Court shall be final and conclusive.

The conditions laid down are therefore these: first, with the presentation of the petition of appeal the amount due for rates appealed against shall be paid into Court; secondly, the appeal shall commence within 15 days from the date of the certificate; thirdly, the chairman of the board shall be made the respondent; and fourthly, the appeal shall be heard by the Court of a Judge whose decision shall be final and conclusive.

It is not disputed that the appellants filed their appeal on 3 June 1971 but did not pay into Court the amount of the rate appealed against until 23 September 1971, a delay of more than 3'bd months. The respondent contended that the appellants had therefore failed to comply with the condition laid down by the said sub-section (i) which required the amount to be paid into Court with the presentation of the petition of appeal.

One can well understand why this condition was imposed by the legislature. Frivolous appeals are often filed for the purpose of delaying payments of rates which the Town Board needs for running its public services of the town and its administration. This condition was obviously designed to prevent this mischief. It is also common knowledge that such appeals would not be heard for a considerable period of time, sometimes for months if not years.

The question before the Court is: Where jurisdiction is given to a Court by statute, upon certain terms or conditions, would non-compliance thereof prevent such jurisdiction from arising? After consulting various authorities including the following I came to the conclusion that it would.

In the Privy Council case of Nusserwanjee Pestonjee v. Meer Mynoodeen Khan Wullud Meer Sudroodeen Khan Bahadoor (1855) 6 Moo IA 134; 10 ER 50, Sir John Patterson, delivering the judgment of the Board, said:-

Wherever jurisdiction is given to a Court by an Act of Parliament, or by a Regulation in India (which has the same effect as an Act of Parliament), and such jurisdiction is only given upon certain specified terms contained in the Regulation itself, it is a universal principle that these terms must be complied with, in order to create and raise the jurisdiction, for if they be not complied with the jurisdiction does not arise.

This principle was followed in a land reference case in Re Land Acquisition Act, Government v. Nanu Kothare & Ors ILR 1906 Bom 275, 285 where Chandravarkar J said:-

These are the conditions prescribed by the Act for the right of the party to a reference by the Collector to come into existence. They are the conditions to which the power of the Collector to make the reference is subject. They are also the conditions which must be fulfilled before the Court can have jurisdiction to entertain the reference.

This principle was also followed by Ong J (as he then was) in Semantan Estate (1952) Ltd. V. Collector Of Land Revenue where he held that since the Court's ju