Management Corporation Strata Title Plan No 2285 and Others v Sum Lye Heng (alias Lim Jessie)

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chao Hick Tin JA
• Judgment Date: 30 March 2004
• Neutral Citation: [2004] SGCA 13
• Docket Number: Civil Appeal No 101 of 2003
• Date: 30 March 2004
• Year: 2004
• Published date: 06 April 2004
• Plaintiff Counsel: Peter Cuthbert Low (Peter Low, Tang and Belinda Ang)
• Citation: [2004] SGCA 13
• Defendant Counsel: Lim Chor Pee (Chor Pee and Partners)
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Sections 66(1), 67(2) Land Titles (Strata) Act (Cap 158, 1999 Rev Ed),Civil Procedure,Jurisdiction of High Court to stay private summons issued in Subordinate Courts where no basis for complaint disclosed,Stay of proceedings,Abuse of process

30 March 2004

Tan Lee Meng J (delivering the judgment of the court):

1 This appeal is in relation to an application filed by the respondent, Sum Lye Heng, also known as Jessie Lim (“Jessie”), to restrain the first appellant, Management Corporation Strata Title Plan No 2285 (“the MC”), from proceeding with any further action in Private Summons No 138 of 2003, which was issued against her pursuant to a complaint filed by the fourth appellant, Chan Tian Soo (“CTS”), on behalf of the MC. Jessie contended that the said complaint and the private summons were an abuse of the process of the court. Woo Bih Li J ordered the MC to be so restrained and further ordered a permanent stay of Private Summons No 138 of 2003. We dismissed the appeal against the judge’s decision (reported at [2003] 4 SLR 553) and now give our reasons for having done so.

Background

2 Jessie and the second to eighth appellants are subsidiary proprietors of housing units in Harbourlights Condominium (“the condominium”). She and the second to eighth appellants served at one time or another as members of the council of the condominium. Jessie is also a former chairperson of the council.

3 For a clearer picture of the present dispute, events dating to the first annual general meeting (“AGM”) of the MC on 19 May 2001 ought to be referred to. At that meeting, Jessie and the fourth to seventh appellants were elected as council members. After the first chairman of the council resigned, Jessie became the chairperson of the council on 13 November 2001.

4 The condominium was then managed by Premas International Limited (“Premas”). Apparently, there was some dissatisfaction with Premas’ services. Jessie, a full-time director and shareholder of SCMS Property Management Pte Ltd (“SCMS”), a property management company, was interested in managing the condominium. She said that she informed the other council members of her role in SCMS before she was appointed the chairperson of the council and that some of the council members encouraged her to arrange for SCMS to submit a tender bid for the management of the condominium.

5 In April 2002, Premas were instructed to prepare tender documents for the award of a new management contract for the condominium. A number of management companies, including SCMS, collected the tender documents. On 7 May 2002, Janet Au, a property agent from Premas, sent a note to all the council members. In it, she stated:

Re : Tender of Management Agent Services

We append the list of companies that [have] collected the tender documents for your necessary information. …

We would like to highlight Section 66(1) of the Land Titles (Strata) Act. …

Copy of section 66 of the LTSA is enclosed for your easy reference.

Members are expected to disclose your interest (if any) for the above.

6 On 13 May 2002, Jessie sent an e-mail to Janet Lim (“Janet”), the secretary of the MC, and her niece and the fifth to seventh appellants, stating that she would take steps to declare her interest in SCMS and that she would not be involved in the evaluation of the tenders submitted for the management of the condominium. She also offered to resign as chairperson and council member at the next council meeting and added that she would not be a candidate for council elections at the second AGM, regardless of whether SCMS succeeded in their bid to manage the condominium.

7 On 15 May 2002, there was a meeting of council members, at which Jessie declared her interest in SCMS. However, Premas advised that this was not a valid council meeting because notice of the meeting and the agenda had not been circulated beforehand. Consequently, another council meeting was called to allow Jessie to formally declare her interest in SCMS. At the material time, the MC was making a claim against Liang Court, the developers of the condominium, and some council members felt that as Jessie was handling the claim quite well, she should declare her interest in SCMS and not step down.

8 For reasons best known to themselves, the relationship between Jessie and some of the other council members deteriorated thereafter. One bone of contention was whether or not Jessie had acted appropriately when she wrote in her capacity as chairman of the council to inform the Commissioner of Buildings on 31 May 2002 of her interest in SCMS. Some council members felt that as it had been already agreed at a council meeting that Premas should write to the Commissioner of Buildings about Jessie’s declaration of interest, she should not have written the letter herself. The hitherto friendly relations between Jessie and some of the other council members took a turn for the worse at a subsequent council meeting on 12 June 2002. Jessie claimed that CTS shouted at her and at Janet and refused to allow them to speak. She and Janet walked out and resigned as chairperson and secretary of the council respectively on 17 June 2002.

9 At the second AGM of the MC on 27 July 2002, the incoming council was authorised to appoint a new managing agent. SCMS were not awarded the management contract by the incoming council.

10 On 18 October 2002, the fourth to seventh appellants instituted legal proceedings against Janet in the High Court for defamation. In the meantime, Jessie was rather unhappy that newspaper reports concerning problems at the People’s Park Centre, which was then managed by SCMS, were circulated to subsidiary proprietors at the condominium. She alleged that the third to fifth appellants circulated these newspaper reports to discredit her.

11 Some three months later, on 13 January 2003, the fourth appellant, CTS, in his capacity as secretary of the council, filed a complaint against Jessie in the subordinate courts. This resulted in the issuance of a private summons against her in January 2003. In his complaint under s 133(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed), CTS contended that Jessie’s conduct in relation to the tender for the provision of management services to the condominium smacked of corruption and/or malpractice and/or abuse of her position as chairperson of the council. He claimed that there were sufficient grounds for proceeding against her for contravening ss 66(1) and 67(2) of the Land Titles (Strata) Act (Cap 158, 1999 Rev Ed), which will be referred to in greater detail later on (at [15]).

12 Jessie had no doubt that the allegations in the complaint were frivolous, vexatious and malicious and she objected to the council’s use of management corporation funds for the purpose of smearing her character. Consequently, she filed Originating Summons No 230 of 2003, in which she sought an order to restrain CTS from proceeding with the complaint as well as an order to the effect that he was not to use the MC’s funds to pay for his solicitors’ fees. Jessie did not obtain the orders...