Bhavashbhai s/o Baboobhai v PP

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judgment Date: 17 March 2014
• Date: 17 March 2014
• Docket Number: Criminal Revision No 9 of 2013
• Court: High Court (Singapore)

Bhavashbhai s/o Baboobhai

Plaintiff

and

Public Prosecutor

Defendant

[2014] SGHC 46

Choo Han Teck J

Criminal Revision No 9 of 2013

High Court

Criminal Law—Statutory Offences—Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) —Enhanced punishment

Criminal Procedure and Sentencing—Revision of proceedings

The applicant was charged in DAC 28580 of 2012 and tried on 3 July 2013 in the district court. The charge was for an offence under s 8 (b) (ii) read with s 33 A (2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) (‘the Act’), namely, the consumption of morphine. The charge under DAC 28580 of 2012 was one known as an ‘LT-2’ charge. ‘LT’ was the acronym for ‘long term’.

A person could only be convicted of an LT-2 offence if he had previously been convicted of an ‘LT-1’ offence. A person could be convicted of an LT-1 offence under s 33 A (1) (d) of the Act if he had not less than one previous admission, as defined in s 33 A (5) (c) of the Act, and one previous conviction for consumption of a specified drug under s 8 (b) of the Act.

The applicant's trial in the court below was stayed on account of this application, wherein the applicant argued that the LT-2 charge, on which he was being tried, was wrong because his previous LT-1 conviction in 2008 was erroneous. The applicant's 2008 LT-1 conviction was premised on a previous conviction for consumption of a controlled drug, morphine, under s 8 (b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 1998 Rev Ed), in 2000. He argued that this 2000 conviction did not qualify as one of the previous convictions that would trigger an LT-1 offence under s 33 A (1) (d). He thus made this application seeking that the court set aside the 2008 LT-1 conviction.

Held, dismissing the application:

(1) The application, if allowed, would have resulted in the applicant evading justice. The applicant was seeking to avoid a greater punishment by attempting to set aside his 2008 LT-1 conviction. However, if he had thought that the previous conviction was wrong, he ought to have appealed against the decision of the judge in 2008. This was not a case of serious injustice that required an exercise of the court's revisionary powers: at [7] .

(2) While the present application was factually different from the case of PP v Shaik Alaudeen s/o Hasan Bashar[2013] 2 SLR 538 (‘Shaik Alaudeen’), both were similar in that both were unmeritorious. The application in Shaik Alaudeen,if allowed, would have caused prejudice to the accused in the contemporary trial: at [7] .

Garmaz s/o Pakhar v PP [1996] 1 SLR (R) 95; [1996] 1 SLR 401 (refd)

PP v Shaik Alaudeen s/o Hasan Bashar [2013] 2 SLR 538 (folld)

Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed) ss 256...