JUDGMENT

Raja Azlan Shah FJ:

The appellant was convicted of agreeing to accept from the complainant a gratification of $800, an offence under s. 4(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1961. He was sentenced to imprisonment for one day and a fine of $2,000 in default nine months. He has appealed against conviction.

The evidence shows the salient facts of the prosecution case to be as follows: The appellant was a member of the Kelantan State Public Services Commission, who in March 1971 had interviewed the complainant for a job as tracer in the Survey Department. He was not successful. In June 1971 he made a second application. In early September 1971 he enlisted the help of an intermediary, PW6, to introduce him to the appellant. On 18 September 1971, together with PW6 he visited the appellant at his house with an offering of rice pulot and eggs. There it is said the alleged agreement to pay the appellant a sum of $800 as inducement to help him get the job was reached. The money was to be handed to PW6 in 15 days' time (3 October 1971) and the venue was the appellant's house. The complainant made a report (not produced because inadmissible) with the local branch of the Anti-Corruption Agency not immediately after the said occurrence but 13 days later (30 September 1971). A police trap was then set on 15 October 1971. $800 notes treated with anthracite were handed to the complainant with instructions to hand them to PW6 who in turn would, according to the said agreement hand them to the appellant. However, the trap proved abortive. It was alleged that the complainant handed the money to PW6 but there was no evidence to that effect. At that material time the appellant was not in his house. He returned a little later. He was searched by the police but nothing incriminating was found on him. The members of his household were also searched but with the same result. His house was meticulously searched from morning till dusk but the money was not found. In the course of the trial the credit of PW6 was impeached by the prosecution.

The central question to be considered in this appeal is whether on the record, as it stands, the learned president was right in accepting the complainant as a witness of truth.

As regards authority, there is, I think, very little to be said. It is hardly necessary to go further back than Tara Singh v. PP [1949] MLJ 88, 89 in 1948. In that case it was held that impression as to demeanour of a witness must be critically tested against the totality of his evidence. Now, the learned president, it is true, had a great advantage over this Court. He saw and heard the witness and I did not. But the demeanour is not always the touch-stone of truth. It is only one ingredient in arriving at a finding of credibility. But so also is motive. Although in cases of this kind it is not easy to get satisfactory evidence, one must not also lose sight of the fact that at the same time it is indeed easy to 'fix' a man in the position of the appellant. A man who was not successful before the Public Services Commission may have hurt his pride and hurt pride is a ferocious beast. It is for this reason that a Judge of fact should always test the complainant's evidence against the totality of his evidence and the probabilities of the case. Failure to do so does amount, in my view, to a misdirection, and if it can be demonstrated that the trial Judge had failed to do that, his conclusion as to credibility, cannot, in justice, be regarded as impeachable, much less unimpeachable. It would therefore be not just for an appellate Court to regard itself as compelled to regard as conclusive his finding on the issue of credibility. The whole matter can be considered afresh. Further, the graver the issue involved, and particularly when an allegation of corruption is in the air, the greater is the necessity for the appellate Court to enquire whether the conclusion as to credibility is one that must under the law be regarded as, for all pra