Lord Fraser of Tullybelton default (delivering the judgement of the Board):

The appellant is a moneylender in Kuala Lumpur. She is licensed under the Moneylenders Ordinance, 1951 (No. 42 of 1951), to carry on the business of moneylending under the name of "AR PR M Firm". There were two partners in the firm, the appellant who was the managing partner, and a man named Chockalingam who lived in Madras and who appears not to have taken an active part in the business. On 11 January 1965 the firm made a loan of $20,000 to the respondent's deceased husband Ng Siew San; he died during the course of the litigation and the respondent is his executrix. As security for the loan Ng gave a charge over six pieces of land in favour of the appellant, and the proceedings began with an Originating Summons on February 1971 in which the appellant applied for an order for sale of the land by public auction to satisfy the principal sum and the arrears of interest then due to her. Ng opposed the application and counterclaimed for an order that the contract of loan and the charge were illegal and void and were therefore unenforceable. The matter first came before Mohamed Azmi J Both he and, on app