JUDGMENT

Gill CJ:

This was an appeal from a judgement of Syed Othman J dismissing an application by the plaintiff in the action (the appellant) for leave to deliver certain interrogatories to the first defendant in the action (the respondent).

The plaintiff was a director and shareholder of a private company known as The United Malaysia Traders Sendirian Berhad which was formed in 1960. The other directors and shareholders of the company were the second, third and fourth defendants. All four of them held 100 shares of $10 each fully paid up in the company. The company possessed certain properties one of which was a fairly large piece of land known as the Bukit Hitam area held under mining certificate No. 2/68 Keratong in the State of Pahang.

On 6 January 1970 at the request of the first defendant, the plaintiff executed in favour of the first defendant a power of attorney and an agreement selling and assigning absolutely his entire shareholding in the company to the first defendant. He also signed on the same date a letter prepared by the first defendant resigning from the board of directors of the company.

On 7 July 1970 he brought an action in the High Court in Kuantan for a declaration that those three documents were void on the ground that he had executed them as a result of fraud, duress and misrepresentation on the part of the first defendant, and for certain consequential reliefs.

The action came up for hearing on 23 September 1971 but it was adjourned to a date to be fixed after the plaintiff had given some evidence, as some questions arose about evidence in relation to some documents and the calling of witnesses, one of whom was said to be in Australia and another who should have been called but had not been subpoenaed. The plaintiff was ordered to pay the costs of the adjournment.

On 23 March 1972 the plaintiff obtained an order of Court to add United Malaysia Traders Sendirian Berhad as the fifth defendant in the action, and for leave to amend the writ and the statement of claim. Following the order the Company was made a party to the action and an amended writ and a further amended statement of claim were filed in April 1972. The fifth defendant filed its statement of defence on 7 October 1972. Thus for all practical purposes the case was to start afresh.

The defence of the first defendant was that the plaintiff had made a voluntary sale of the plaintiff's entire shareholdings in the company for $40,000 and the defence of the other defendants was to the effect that the company had been inactive since its incorporation and that they were not parties to the fraud.

The application to deliver interrogatories was made on 13 July 1972. Question 1 in the interrogatories was whether the first defendant had been the financier of the plaintiff and the other defendants since 1965. The other five questions were in respect of any transaction between the company and the Rompin Mining Co. Dungun relating to the land held under the mining certificate, some related matters and payments alleged to have been made by the said mining company to the first defendant.

In dealing with the application the learned Judge took the view that, as the main question in issue was the circumstances leading to the plaintiff executing the three documents, none of the interrogatories related to that question. Counsel for the appellant contended before us that the questions sought to be put to the first defendant were meant to show that the first defendant had withheld information from the plaintiff in order to induce the plaintiff to execute those documents and that on the dates specified in the interrogatories the first defendant had obtained large sums of money from Rompin Mining Co. The view which we took was that although interrogatories much be confined to matters which are in issue, they may under some circumstances extend to facts the existence or non-existence of which is relevant to the existence or nonexistence of the facts directly i