Ling Diung Kwong v Bo Tien Temple and others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: George Wei J
• Judgment Date: 10 July 2017
• Neutral Citation: [2017] SGHC 155
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Originating Summons 1169 of 2016
• Published date: 10 March 2018
• Year: 2017
• Hearing Date: 30 March 2017,31 March 2017
• Plaintiff Counsel: Sivanathan Wijaya Ravana (R S Wijaya & Co)
• Defendant Counsel: Ee Hock Hoe Adrian and Chew Yun Ping Joanne (Ramdas & Wong)
• Subject Matter: Unincorporated Associations and Trade Unions,Meetings,Membership,Termination
• Citation: [2017] SGHC 155

George Wei J: Introduction

The plaintiff commenced proceedings seeking a declaration that two decisions taken to terminate his positions as trustee and member of the Bo Tien Temple respectively were null and void. The plaintiff also sought an injunction to restrain the defendants from enforcing the wrongful termination of his trusteeship and membership, and aggravated damages for such wrongful termination. After hearing the parties’ arguments, I dismissed the plaintiff’s claim and found in favour of the defendants. The plaintiff being dissatisfied has filed an appeal. These are the grounds of my decision.

Facts The parties

The plaintiff is Ling Diung Kwong (“the Plaintiff”). He was a long-standing member and trustee of the 1st defendant, the Bo Tien Temple, which is a society registered under the Societies Act (Cap 311, 2014 Rev Ed). It was established sometime in the early 1970s.¹

The 2nd to 6th defendants (“the Defendants”) are members of the Management Committee (“MC”) of the Bo Tien Temple. The names of the 2nd to 6th defendants and their respective positions within the MC are as follows: 2nd defendant: Cheng Ai Bak, President; 3rd defendant: Teo Kok Boon, Vice President; 4th defendant: Chua Teck Beng, Secretary; 5th defendant: Chong Kok Keong, Assistant Secretary; 6th defendant: Kong Meng Sin, Advisor.

The Plaintiff claims he was a “founding member” of Bo Tien Temple and that he was anointed as “head” of the temple in 1970 by its temple saint, Lord Bo Tien.² The Defendants maintain that the Plaintiff was neither a founding member nor the head of the Bo Tien Temple, but acknowledge that the Plaintiff was a “pioneer” member. ³ It is also undisputed that the Plaintiff previously served as President of the Bo Tien Temple MC for almost 25 years.⁴

Relevant terms of the Bo Tien Temple Constitution

The Bo Tien Temple is governed by rules set out in a document entitled the “Bo Tien Temple Constitution” (“BTT Constitution”). As regards the MC’s powers to terminate a member’s membership and the procedure for doing this, the relevant terms of the BTT Constitution are as follows: 8a. The Management Committee shall have the authority to terminate the membership of any members, if it is of the opinion that such member acts detrimental to the interests of the Temple. Provided that before the [M]anagement Committee takes any decision for the expulsion of a member, it shall: i. Inform the member concerned that it is considering his expulsion, with such particulars as may be necessary to disclose the basic reason therefore and invite the member concerned, within a period of not less than seven days from the date of the notice to be specified in the notice, to give the Management Committee any written explanation he may wish to offer and to inform the Management Committee if he wishes to be heard orally. ii. Allow the time specified in the notice to lapse and shall give the member concerned reasonable opportunity to be heard if he/she so desire (sic) and shall give due consideration to any explanation he may make and evidence he may call. 8b. Proceedings before the Management Committee shall be as informal as possible and consistently with fairness, all decisions as to the procedure shall be at the discretion of the Management Committee. 8c. The Management Committee may receive any evidence which it considers relevant to the matter, whether oral or written, and whether or not it would be admissible in a court of law. The Management Committee shall not be bound by the rules of evidence and shall act in such manner as it think (sic) just and expedient. 8d. The decision of the Management Committee shall be by simple majority of the members present and voting. The President shall have a second or casting vote in the event of equal votes. Provided always that the voting at any such meeting shall be by secret ballot.

With regard to the circumstances under which a trustee of Bo Tien Temple may be removed, and the procedure by which this is to be done, the following are the relevant terms of the BTT Constitution: 19d. Save as otherwise herein provided, trustees shall be appointed at a [G]eneral [M]eeting of the Temple and they shall hold office for as long as required subject to the right of any trustee to resign his office by giving at least 14 days (sic) notice to the Management Committee.

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19f. If a trustee is believed to be guilty of conduct rendering it undesirable that the (sic) continues as a trustee, a General Meeting may in its absolute discretion to remove him from his trusteeship.

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19i. Notice of any proposal to remove a trustee from his trusteeship or to appoint a new trustee to fill a vacancy must be given in writing to the Honorary Secretary at least two weeks before the meeting at which the proposal is to be discussed. The result of such meeting shall then be notified to the Registrar of Societies and the Commissioner of Charities.

Finally, it is also worth noting the following terms of the BTT Constitution relating to the powers of the General Meeting and the procedures by which such power is to be exercised: 17a. The management of the Temple is vested in a [G]eneral [M]eeting of the members presided over by the President. At least one quarter of the total membership of the Temple must be present at a general meeting to constitute a quorum. Proxies shall not be constituted as part of the quorum. 17b. In the event of there being no quorum, the proposed meeting shall be adjourned for half an hour and thereafter those present shall be deemed to constitute a quorum, but such adjourned meeting shall have no power to alter, amend or make additions to the Constitution and rules made thereunder to review any rules, decisions or resolutions made or passed by the Management Committee.

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17f. Unless otherwise stated in this Constitution, voting by proxy shall be allowed at all General Meetings.

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17j. The decision of a [G]eneral [M]eeting shall be by simple majority of the members present and voting save as otherwise herein provided. The Chairman shall have a second casting vote in the event of equal votes. Tensions between the parties

The present proceedings were preceded by a history of acrimony between the Plaintiff and the Defendants which included an earlier attempt to remove the Plaintiff (as trustee and member) which had also resulted in litigation. As early as 2006, the Plaintiff had clashed publicly with the 4th and 6th defendants at the Bo Tien Temple’s 36th Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) over the Plaintiff’s allegations that the 4th defendant had manipulated certain AGM minutes.⁵ The Plaintiff and the 4th defendant gave differing accounts of how the incident came about.⁶ Irrespective of whose account is more accurate, it was clear that there have been tensions between the Plaintiff and the 4th and 6th defendants for quite some time.

In written and oral submissions, the parties did not delve into the details of the various disagreements between the Plaintiff and the Defendants over the years. Indeed it was not necessary for them to do so for the purposes of arguing the issues before me. However, it is worth mentioning three incidents which the Defendants eventually relied on as the basis of the Plaintiff’s removal as trustee and member of Bo Tien Temple: Sometime in 2004, the Plaintiff entered the temple premises and removed certain flags known as “Ngor Ya” flags despite having been told by the MC not to do so.⁷ Sometime in 2004, when a Mr David Tay (also known as Tay Choon Hock) (“Tay”) assumed the position of President of the MC, the Plaintiff allegedly called him a “puppet”.⁸ I note, however, that the Plaintiff denies this.⁹ I will refer to this as the “Name-calling Incident.” In March 2011, the Plaintiff sent the MC an email attaching a copy of a draft book (“the Draft Book”). In the email, the Plaintiff stated that he intended to publish the Draft Book.¹⁰ Excerpts of this Draft Book were included in a letter from the 2nd defendant to the Plaintiff, which the Plaintiff annexed to his affidavit dated 11 November 2016.¹¹ I will not go into the details of these excerpts. It suffices to say that they were generally critical of several members of Bo Tien Temple, including the 2nd, 4th and 6th defendants, and that they cast these members in an unfavourable light. The excerpts also raised factual allegations against various individuals, including an assertion that the 4th defendant had committed an act “criminal in nature”.¹² Although the Plaintiff had expressed that he was determined to publish the Draft Book in several letters to the MC,¹³ it seems that the Draft Book was eventually not published.¹⁴ The 4th defendant claims that “the prevailing sentiment of majority of [Bo Tien Temple] members is that the [D]raft [B]ook’s contents are defamatory and inaccurate”.¹⁵

OS 998/2014 and past attempts to terminate the plaintiff’s trusteeship and membership

In the present proceedings, the Plaintiff sought to invalidate decisions to terminate his trusteeship and membership which were taken on 9 May 2015 and 3 July 2015 respectively. As mentioned above, prior to these decisions, the members of the MC (including some of the Defendants herein) had made earlier attempts to remove the Plaintiff as trustee and member of Bo Tien Temple in 2012 and 2013. Those attempts were the subject of an earlier set of proceedings, OS 998/2014.

OS 998/2014 was the Plaintiff’s suit against the 1st, 2nd and 4th defendants herein, as well as Tay. The Plaintiff sought a declaration that the following decisions were invalid:¹⁶ A decision by the then MC made at a Committee Meeting held on 22 March 2012 to terminate the Plaintiff’s membership (“the 2012 membership termination decision”); A decision by the General Meeting of Bo Tien Temple made at the 42nd AGM held on 24 March 2012 to remove the...