Aamna Taseer v Shaan Taseer and others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choo Han Teck J
• Judgment Date: 10 February 2012
• Neutral Citation: [2012] SGHC 32
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Originating Summons No 866 of 2011
• Published date: 09 April 2013
• Year: 2012
• Hearing Date: 07 February 2011
• Plaintiff Counsel: Daniel Chia and Emily Choo (Stamford Law Corporation)
• Defendant Counsel: Sim Bock Eng, Chloe Lee and Joel Chng (WongPartnership LLP)
• Subject Matter: Land
• Citation: [2012] SGHC 32

Choo Han Teck J:

Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, was assassinated on 4 January 2011. He was a Sunni Muslim and a citizen of Pakistan, as is his widow and second wife Aamna Taseer, the plaintiff. They have three children aged between 22 and 28. Salman Taseer divorced his first wife in 1983. The defendants are the three children from his marriage to the first wife. Salman Taseer’s estate is the subject of litigation in Pakistan, and the defendants have obtained an injunction from the Pakistani Court restraining the plaintiff from disposing of all assets of Salman Taseer’s estate until further order. The Pakistani Court order dated 29 September 2011 concluded with this qualification:

However, this order shall not be prejudiced to any legal/judicial proceedings going on in any court.

The order was clearly, at the least, a personal order binding the defendants named therein, which included the plaintiff and her three children. Mr Daniel Chia (“Mr Chia”), counsel for the plaintiff, submitted that the order made no claim to oust the jurisdiction of any other court, including this court, should it have jurisdiction to adjudicate on any property or rights of any of the claimants.

This application before me arose because Salman Taseer had purchased 82 Cove Drive, a property in Singapore, in his and the plaintiff’s names. The property was purchased for S$11m. According to Miss Sim Bock Eng (“Miss Sim”), counsel for the defendants, it is now worth S$16m. The defendants had lodged a caveat against this property in Singapore citing the claim that they are beneficiaries to the property and that the plaintiff was holding the property on trust for Salman Taseer. The plaintiff filed this application for the defendants to show cause why the caveat should not be removed and an order for the defendants to remove the caveat if they failed to show that the caveat should remain.

Mr Chia’s case was that the defendants have no legal standing to lodge the caveat. The law is that no one can lodge a caveat unless he has a “caveatable interest”. Under the Torrens System, the caveatable interest arises out of an interest in the land. Only persons who have an interest in the land itself may lodge a caveat. Mr Chia cited Guardian, Trust, and Executors Company of New Zealand, Limited v Hall [1938] NZLR 1020 (“Guardian, Trust”) as authority for the proposition that “[u]ntil the residue of a deceased estate has been ascertained, a beneficiary entitled to...