George Sapooran Singh v Gordip d/o MD Garsingh

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Kannan Ramesh JC
• Judgment Date: 19 September 2016
• Neutral Citation: [2016] SGHC 197
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Divorce Petition No 1922 of 1992 (Summons No 600100 of 2015)
• Published date: 22 September 2016
• Year: 2016
• Hearing Date: 15 March 2016,29 December 2015,08 June 2016,04 July 2016
• Plaintiff Counsel: Alagappan Arunasalam (A Alagappan Law Corporation)
• Defendant Counsel: Gurmeet Kaur d/o Amar Singh (Harjeet Singh & Co)
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Maintenance
• Citation: [2016] SGHC 197

Kannan Ramesh JC: Introduction

The husband was subject to a court order to pay maintenance to his wife from his first marriage. The husband applied subsequently to rescind the maintenance order, citing the needs of the family from his second marriage as constituting a “material change in circumstances” under s 118 of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed). What approach should the court take in such a situation? This was the pith of the case in Summons No 600100 of 2015 (“the Application”), which was the Petitioner’s application under s 118 to rescind an Order of Court dated 16 September 2010 (“the Order”) ordering that he pay maintenance to the Respondent in the sum of $150 per month with effect from 1 September 2010. The Petitioner was the husband and the Respondent the wife. I shall hereinafter refer to the parties as “Mr Singh” and “Mdm Gordip” respectively. Both parties were represented by counsel appointed by the Legal Aid Bureau.

On 4 July 2016, I heard and dismissed the Application, and delivered brief oral grounds. Mr Singh has appealed my decision and I now set out my detailed grounds of decision.

Background

The parties were both around 70 years of age. They had one child from their marriage, a son (“the Son”), at present 28 years of age. He worked as a relief security guard and lived with Mdm Gordip in an HDB apartment registered in Mdm Gordip’s sole name.

Mr Singh remarried on 15 April 1994. His marriage was to Mdm Mary d/o Koshy (“Mdm Koshy”). That was also Mdm Koshy’s second marriage. Mdm Koshy had four children from her previous marriage. Mr Singh, Mdm Koshy and her unmarried daughter (“the Daughter”) lived under one roof in an HDB apartment which appeared to be registered in their joint names. Apart from the Daughter, Mdm Koshy’s other children, a son and two daughters, were said to be married and did not live with her.

The parties divorced on 13 May 1993. On the application of Mdm Gordip, the court directed maintenance of $250 per month to be paid to Mdm Gordip and the Son (apportioned $70 and $180 respectively). Subsequently, by a consent order dated 19 March 2001 (“the Consent Order”), Mr Singh consented to increasing the maintenance to $300. An attempt was made by Mdm Gordip in Summons No 600036 of 2010 (“the first application”) to vary the Consent Order by increasing the maintenance to $500; this application resulted in the Order. Several grounds were relied upon by Mdm Gordip in the first application, including that: She had been unable to work since 2002 due to poor health; she suffered from hypertension, ischemic heart disease and hypercholesterolemia; The Son, though having reached 22 years of age, was unable to find employment; and Since 2008, Mr Singh had stopped paying maintenance for the Son, on the ground that he had reached the age of majority;

In his affidavit in reply in the first application filed on 7 July 2010, Mr Singh cited several reasons in resistance, being that: He had remarried on 15 April 1994 and his present wife, Mdm Koshy, suffered from several medical ailments; Mr Singh and Mdm Koshy lived alone and survived solely on his monthly salary of $2,500 as a security guard (though it was acknowledged that Mdm Koshy had children, the point made was that they were married with their own families and did not seem compelled to support her); Mr Singh suffered from several medical ailments that required regular medical treatment which, coupled with his age, then 65 years, made it doubtful that he could continue working; The combined monthly household expenses of Mr Singh and Mdm Koshy were $1,234.60; his monthly savings of around $1,000 were required to ensure that the couple’s needs were taken care of should he stop working; and Mdm Gordip ought to be supported by the Son, who lived with her, given that he had reached the age of majority.

Notably, there was no application by Mr Singh to rescind or vary the Consent Order.

The Order increased the maintenance payable to Mdm Gordip from $70 to $150 a month. Though it was not entirely clear, the $150 that was allowed for maintenance under the Order was intended solely for Mdm Gordip as the Son had reached the age of majority. The court appeared to proceed based on the assumption that Mdm Gordip was eligible for maintenance of only $70 a month under the Consent Order.

The Application

As stated earlier, Mr Singh brought the Application under s 118 on the basis that there was a “material change in the circumstances”. This is one of three grounds set out in s 118 for variation or rescission of a subsisting order for maintenance. For ease of reference, I reproduce s 118 below:

Power of court to vary orders for maintenance

118. The court may at any time vary or rescind any subsisting order for maintenance, whether secured or unsecured, on the application of the person in whose favour or of the person against whom the order was made, or, in respect of secured maintenance, of the legal personal representatives of the latter, where it is satisfied that the order was based on any misrepresentation or mistake of fact or where there has been any material change in the circumstances.

It was common ground that s 118 was applicable to the Application. The sole issue before me therefore was whether there was in fact a “material change in the circumstances”.

A total of six affidavits were filed – four by Mr Singh and two by Mdm Gordip. I now set out the grounds that were advanced by the parties in support of their respective positions.

Mr Singh’s submissions

In his submissions, Mr Singh offered two principal grounds which for different reasons allegedly resulted in his inability to continue working, thereby depriving him of an income that would have otherwise placed him in a position to perform the Order. The two grounds were, that: Mdm Koshy was in need of a full-time caregiver because of her medical condition, which was a role that Mr Singh had assumed and fulfilled; and Mr Singh was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in December 2014 (“the Cancer”).

As a result of these grounds, Mr Singh alleged that he had to give up his job as a security guard and the accompanying salary of $1,900 a month, which in turn left him dependent on the monthly sum of $460 which he received from his CPF Retirement Account to meet the increased expenses of both Mdm Koshy and himself. Their expenses were asserted to be a monthly sum of $1,137.13 (“the Expenses”), the details of which were:

	Item	Expense ($)
a.	Town council charges	42.00
b.	Power supply	120.00
c.	Starhub HomeHub	56.86
d.	Starhub Handphone bill	66.27
e.	Sundry goods	300.00
f.	Marketing	200.00
g.	Clothes, personal effects, toiletries	120.00
h.	Medical expenses ($200.00/4 months)	50.00
i.	Transport (bus/MRT fare/taxi)	150.00
j.	Wife’s handphone bill	32.00
		Total: $1,137.13

It should be noted that in an earlier breakdown of the monthly expenses provided by Mr Singh a marginally higher sum of $1,138.54 was asserted. The difference was immaterial.

Without an income, Mr Singh asserted that he was unable to make ends meet, let alone perform his obligations under the Order. He therefore submitted that these grounds constituted a material change of his circumstances justifying a rescission of the Order.

Mr Singh also submitted that the Son should provide for the needs of Mdm Gordip as he was working. Though this was not a point that was made in submission, in his third affidavit, Mr Singh asserted that the Son should enhance his income by working as a full-time security officer instead of remaining a relief security officer. However, no evidence was offered as to whether this was feasible in the Son’s circumstances or what difference it would have made to his income.

Mdm Gordip’s submissions

Mdm Gordip challenged the premise of Mr Singh’s submission that the Cancer and the condition of Mdm Koshy necessarily meant that he could not work. Her argument was that both of these situations did not prevent Mr Singh from returning to work.

Mdm Gordip’s arguments were predicated on two assumptions, being that: Mr Singh could be re-employed as a security guard and would as a result be able to draw at least his last drawn pay of $1,900 a month; and The income thereby generated, coupled with other payments that he and Mdm Koshy received, would enable Mr Singh not only to engage a caregiver but also meet the Expenses and his obligations under the Order. It should be noted that Mr Singh did not challenge these assumptions; instead he chose to focus on why it was reasonable for him to cease employment.

As regards the Cancer, Mdm Gordip submitted that the medical evidence that Mr Singh offered showed clearly that he was in remission and well. Reliance in particular was placed on the medical report dated 15 March 2016, which stated that Mr Singh was last seen by the doctors on 23 December 2015 and found to be well. She pointed out that the report of the medical examination dated 21 December 2015 stated that there was “… no evidence of local tumor recurrent or distant metastasis [emphasis added]”. Mdm Gordip submitted that this unequivocally showed that the Cancer no longer continued to debilitate Mr Singh; there was no reason therefore to conclude that Mr Singh was unfit to return to work on account of the Cancer.

As regards Mdm Koshy’s condition, Mdm Gordip’s argument was that there was no reason why Mr Singh, as opposed to someone else, should be her primary caregiver. Mdm Gordip presented arguments on other aspects as well, such as that Mrs Koshy only required “moderate assistance with her activities of daily living”, according to a memo from the National University Hospital dated 19 June 2014 which described her condition at the time.

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