N.H. Chan JCA:

[2] Section 68(l)(a) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 is as follows:

68(l)No appeal shall be brought to the Court of Appeal in any of the following cases:

(a) when the amount or value of the subject-matter of the claim (exclusive of interest) is less than two hundred and fifty thousand ringgit, except with the leave of the Court of Appeal;

Their Lordships are of opinion that the appeal is incompetent. The proper measure of value for determining the question of the right of appeal is , in their judgment, the amount which has been recovered by the plaintiff in the action and against which the appeal could be brought . Their Lordships, even if they were not bound by it, would agree in principle with the rule laid down in the judgment of this tribunal delivered by Lord Chelmsford in the case of Macfarlane v. Leclaire 15 Moore, PCC 181, that is, that the judgment is to be looked at as it affects the interests of the party who is prejudiced by it, and who seeks to relieve himself from it by appeal. If there is to be a limit of value at all, that seems evidently the right principle on which to measure it. The person against whom the judgment is passed has either lost what he demanded as plaintiff or has been adjudged to pay something or to do something as defendant . It may be that the value to the defendant of an adverse judgment is greater than the value laid by the plaintiff in his claim. If so, which was the case in Macfarlane v. Leclaire, it would be very unjust that he should be bound, not by the value to himself but by the value originally assigned to the subject-matter of the action by his opponent. The present is the converse case. A man makes a claim for much larger damages than he is likely to recover. The injury to the defendant, if he is wrongly adjudged to pay damages, is measured by the amount of damages which he is adjudged to pay. That is not in the least enhanced to him by the fact that some greater sum had been claimed on the other side. (emphasis supplied)

Therefore in principle their Lordships think the case is governed by Macfarlane v. Leclaire, upon the question of value, and they do not think it is at all affected by the circumstance that the Court below did not give effect to that objection, but gave leave to appeal. It has been decided in former cases that leave so given does not make the thing right, if it ought not to have been done.

[4] The appellant (who was the defendant in the High Court) as"the person against whom the judgment is passed ... has been adjudged ... to do something as defendant", namely, he was ordered specifically to perform the sale and purchase agreement dated 14 September 1989. An appeal against that judgment will be prohibited if the value of the subject-matter of the judgment for specific performance is below the value of RM250,000 (if leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal has not been obtained).