JUDGMENT

Abdul Malek Ahmad JCA:

The forerunner to the Architects Act 1967 (hereinafter "the Act") was the Architects Ordinance 1951 (hereinafter "the Ordinance") where in s. 2 the definition of "specially authorised person" was "a person who is registered under para. (f) of sub-s. (1) of s. 6 of the Ordinance".

Reproduction of the whole of s. 6 of the Ordinance is necessary for our purpose and it reads as follows:

6.(1) Subject to the provisions of this Ordinance, the following persons shall be entitled to be registered under this Ordinance -

(a) any person who, on the date of application for registration under this Ordinance, is registered as an Architect under the Architects (Registration) Acts of the United Kingdom, 1931 and 1938;

(b) any person who, on the date of application for registration under this Ordinance, is registered as an Architect in Register No. 1 under the Architects Ordinance, 1941, and who, on the commencement of this Ordinance, is practising the profession of architect in the Federation;

(c) any person who has passed an examination which qualifies him for candidature as an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects;

(d) any person who has passed an examination held under paragraph (a) of section 4 of this Ordinance;

(e) any person who satisfies the Minister that he was practising as an architect in the Federation at the date of the coming into force of this Ordinance and who makes application for registration under this Ordinance within two years of such date; and

(f) any person not otherwise qualified under any of the foregoing paragraphs of this sub-section who has been approved by a building authority for registration under this Ordinance.

(2) A specially authorised person may submit plans only to, and within the limits of, the building authority which has approved him for registration.

In our view, however, the only provisions in the said section relevant to this appeal would be, as earlier underlined by us, the opening lines of sub-s. (1) in particular the words "entitled to be registered under this Ordinance", para. (f) of sub-s. (1) (hereinafter "the approving paragraph"), and sub-s. (2). Essentially, the effect of these three provisions is that a person who has been approved by a building authority for registration under the Ordinance shall be entitled to be so registered but he may submit plans only to, and within the limits of, the building authority which has approved him for registration.

Subsequently, s. 2 of the Act, which only came into force as a revised Act on 1 October 1973, has the following definition of "Building Draughtsman":

"Building Draughtsman" means -

(a) any person who immediately before the appointed date was a specially authorised person within the meaning of the Architects Ordinance, 1951, registered under Part II of the register kept and maintained under that Ordinance but shall not include any person qualified for registration under the Registration of Engineers Act, 1967, or the Registration of Surveyors Act, 1967; and

(b) any other person whom the Board in its absolute discretion may deem desirable to register having regard to his qualification and experience and to the requirements of any Building Authority.

Against this backdrop, we will now examine the registration details of the respondents. Actually, only the first three respondents are involved in this appeal as from the notes of proceedings in the court below, it has been stated that the fourth respondent had lost interest after the filing of the action. This fact has been brought to our attention by learned counsel for the respondents when he started his submissions before us and this was promptly confirmed by learned counsel for the appellant. Hence, any reference to the respondents hereafter would mean only the first three respondents.

Learned counsel for the appellant argued that the action was actually out of time in view of para. (b) of sub-s. (1) of s. 6 of the Limitation Act 195