Seow Francis v Comptroller of Income Tax

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Lai Kew Chai J
• Judgment Date: 12 June 1990
• Neutral Citation: [1990] SGHC 42
• Docket Number: Criminal Motion No 32 of 1988
• Date: 12 June 1990
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Year: 1990
• Plaintiff Counsel: VK Dube (Ann Tan & Associates)
• Citation: [1990] SGHC 42
• Defendant Counsel: Lawrence Ang and Yang Ing Loong (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: s 185(1)(b) Applicant a politician and professional person Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68),Trials,Questions of law of unusual difficulty,Transfer from subordinate courts to High Court,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Transfer of cases

By this criminal motion, the applicant applied for an order that Income Tax Summons Case Nos 90142 to 90147 of 1988 be transferred from the subordinate courts and heard in the High Court pursuant to s 185 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68). At the conclusion of the hearing of the criminal motion, I held that the application did not, in my judgment, come within s 185(1)(a), (b) or (e) of the CPC and accordingly dismissed it. I indicated that I would give my reasons later. This I now do.

For present purposes, the relevant statutory provisions in the CPC which require recital are as follows:

185(1) Whenever it is made to appear to the High Court that -

(a) a fair and impartial inquiry ... trial cannot be had in any criminal court subordinate to it;

(b) some question of law of unusual difficulty is likely to arise;

...

(e) such an order is expedient for the ends of justice ...,

it may order that -

...

(ii) any particular criminal case shall be transferred to and tried before the High Court.

The appellant was charged with four counts of evasion of income tax under s 96(1)(a) and two counts under s 96(1)(d) of the Income Tax Act (Cap 134). The relevant income tax summonses were due to be heard on 5 December 1988 to 23 December 1988 in Court No 10 of the subordinate courts. In support of the criminal motion, the applicant filed an affidavit which contained 40 paragraphs. As I was satisfied that it contained irrelevant and scandalous matters, pursuant to O 41 r 6 of the Rules of the Supreme Court 1970, I ordered that except for eight paragraphs the other paragraphs of the affidavit be expunged.

The first contention of the applicant was that there were questions of law of unusual difficulty to be tried in this case, within the meaning of s 185(1)(b) of the CPC. However, an analysis of the charges would disclose that the only two issues before the trial courts would be whether the applicant had omitted to declare certain earned income in his income tax returns and, if he did, whether the omission was wilful. It is beyond dispute that district judges are perfectly competent to try the sort of cases with which the appellant was concerned: see Measor & Anor v PP [1972] 1 MLJ 195 .

The applicant`s second contention was based on his status as a non-constituency Member of Parliament and as a professional person. In the penultimate paragraph of his affidavit the applicant asserted that `previous prosecutions...