Shailja Sharma @ Bhatara Shailja v Rajat Sharma and another appeal and other matters

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Valerie Thean JC
• Judgment Date: 24 November 2014
• Neutral Citation: [2014] SGHC 256
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Divorce No 6042 of 2011 (Registrar’s Appeal from State Courts Nos 82 and 116 of 2014 and Summons Nos 4640 and 4797 of 2014)
• Published date: 08 December 2014
• Year: 2014
• Hearing Date: 06 November 2014,24 November 2014
• Plaintiff Counsel: Johnson Loo Teck Lee (Drew & Napier LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: The appellant in RAS No 82 of 2014 and the respondent in RAS No 116 of 2014 in person.
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Matrimonial assets,Division,Maintenance,Wife
• Citation: [2014] SGHC 256

Valerie Thean JC: Introduction

The plaintiff (“the Husband”) and the defendant (“the Wife”) appealed in RAS No 82 of 2014 and cross-appealed RAS No 116 of 2014 respectively against the district judge’s (“the DJ”) decision on their ancillary matters, made on 21 April 2014. I heard at the same time Summons No 4797 of 2014 and Summons No 4640 of 2014, the Husband’s and Wife’s respective summonses to adduce further evidence.

Background

The Husband and Wife were married on 12 March 2007 in New Delhi, India. They do not have any children. The Husband is a senior information technology application consultant earning a gross monthly salary of $5,950. The wife is an insurance executive earning a gross monthly salary of $2,150.

The Husband had been living in Singapore for some time prior to the marriage and is a Singapore citizen. After the wedding, the Wife moved to and settled in Singapore. They both continue to reside in Singapore, although they are no longer living together. The Wife left the matrimonial home in July 2011.¹ Interim judgment was granted on 18 July 2012, on the agreed basis of both the claim of the Husband and counterclaim of the Wife, on each other’s unreasonable behaviour.

Arguments on ancillary matters were heard by the DJ on 11 March, 2 and 9 April 2014. After the hearing on 9 April 2014, the Husband asked for the opportunity to make further arguments. The DJ obliged, and heard parties on 21 April 2014. At the close of that hearing, the DJ ordered, inter alia, that: The Wife was to transfer her interest in the matrimonial home (which was held jointly) at Blk 1D Cantonment Road #04-14, Singapore 085401, The Duxton (“the Duxton flat”) to the Husband, against the Husband paying the Wife 25% of the net value of the Duxton flat. The parties were to jointly instruct their agreed property valuer, Chesterton Singapore Pte Ltd (“Chesterton”) to carry out a valuation of the matrimonial flat within three months from the date of the interim judgment becoming final. The Husband was to pay lump sum maintenance of $30,000 (calculated on the basis of $500 per month for five years) into the Wife’s bank account (this lump sum maintenance was paid up by the Husband subsequent to the order and prior to the hearing of the appeal). A previous interim maintenance order which the Wife had obtained was rescinded with effect from 1 May 2014. The Husband was to return to the Wife all jewellery and personal effects given to the Wife by the Wife’s family, if they were in his possession. The Wife was to return to the Husband all jewellery and personal effects given to the Husband by the Husband’s family, if they were in her possession.

The Husband and Wife both appealed and cross-appealed against the orders above. Both also applied to adduce further evidence on appeal in Summons No 4797 of 2014 and Summons No 4640 of 2014 respectively. I will address the summonses in the course of discussing the issues to which they relate.

Matrimonial asset

The only matrimonial asset subject to division is the Duxton flat, which was purchased on 31 May 2010.² The Duxton flat was financed in part by the sale proceeds of an earlier flat which the couple owned at Block 641A #07-333, Punggol Drive, Singapore 821641 (“the Punggol flat”). The Punggol flat was purchased on 22 August 2008³ and sold on 15 March 2010. Parties agreed that the proceeds from the sale of the Punggol flat were applied to the purchase, renovation and furnishing of the Duxton flat.

Direct contributions

To assess the parties’ direct financial contributions to the Duxton flat, it is first necessary to determine the direct financial contributions they made to the Punggol flat.

The Punggol flat

The Husband’s contentions

The Husband contended that he contributed the following amounts to the purchase of the Punggol flat:

S/No	Contribution	Amount ($)
1.	CPF lump sum	18,650.00
2.	Cash option fee	5,000.00
3.	CPF stamp fee	6,300.00
4.	Cash balance	30,650.00
5.	Furnishing	30,735.56
6.	Cash mortgage repayment ($500 per month from August 2008–May 2010)	11,000.00
7.	CPF mortgage repayment ($1,035 per month from August 2008–May 2010)	22,770.00
TOTAL	125,105.56

The Wife’s contentions

The Wife contended that she had paid amounts to the Husband in cash towards the Punggol flat, totalling about $33,666.67 (the cash payments were made in Indian rupees, but the method of currency conversion was not disputed for the following amounts):⁴

S/No	Contribution	Amount ($)
1.	Dowry from the Wife’s family (March 2007)	10,000.00
2.	Cash from the Wife’s family (October/November 2007)	10,000.00
3.	Cash from the Wife’s family for the Husband’s application for Singapore Citizenship (January 2008)	6,666.67
4.	Cash from the Wife’s family during the Husband’s period of joblessness (June–October 2008)	7,000.00
TOTAL	33,666.67

The DJ’s decision

The DJ found that the Husband paid $18,650 from his CPF account and $5,000 in cash (totalling $23,650) towards the purchase of the Punggol flat. The Wife, on the other hand, contributed $3,000 in cash. The DJ therefore concluded that the Husband’s and the Wife’s entitlement to the sale proceeds of the Punggol flat would be 89% and 11% respectively.

The DJ rejected the Wife’s submission that her family members gave the Husband $70,000 out of which $30,000 was used for the purchase of the Punggol flat. These moneys were apparently paid by the family members as gifts. The Wife’s family members had filed affidavits in support of her contention, and exhibited handwritten bank statements to prove the withdrawals of large amounts of money from their Indian bank accounts. The Wife argued that these withdrawals were proof that her family members had provided money to her which she contributed to the purchase of the Punggol flat.

The DJ rejected this assertion. The DJ stated that it was “unusual that bank withdrawal statements of such large amounts could be handwritten”. The DJ further stated that there was no evidence that this was common practice in India. The DJ also mentioned in passing that the sums, if paid, were in any event paid pursuant to dowry demands by the Husband, and they would have been tainted with illegality. The DJ therefore rejected the Wife’s claim that she had contributed $30,000 in cash to the purchase of the Punggol flat.

The Duxton flat

The Husband’s contentions

The Husband claims that the contributions of the respective parties to the Duxton flat was as follows:

S/No	Item	Husband ($)	Wife ($)
1.	CPF contributions	95,585.00 (Principle) 6,520.00 (Interest)	11,419.00 (Principle) 363.00 (Interest)
2.	Cash contributions from sale of the Punggol flat	41,258.50	0.00
3.	Renovation and furnishing from sale of the Punggol flat	54,609.00	0.00
TOTAL	197,972.50	11,782.00
PERCENTAGE SHARE	94.4%	5.6%

The Wife’s contentions

The Wife contended that she and her family made cash contributions to the Husband during this period (again, the cash payments were made in Indian rupees, but the method of currency conversion was not disputed for the following amounts). The Wife’s breakdown of her alleged cash contribution to the Duxton flat was as follows:

S/No	Contribution	Amount ($)
1.	Cash from father for ancestral land which the Husband said could be taken into account for the Duxton flat (December 2009)	15,000.00
2.	Cash from family for furnishings (August 2010)	7,500.00
3.	Cash from the Wife’s personal savings	6,000.00
TOTAL	28,500.00

The DJ’s decision

The DJ accepted the Wife’s position that she had made the cash contributions to the purchase of the Duxton flat. These were the DJ’s calculations:

S/No	Contributions	Husband ($)	Wife ($)
1.	CPF contributions	95,585.00 (Principle) 6,520.00 (Interest)	11,419.00 (Principle) 363.00 (Interest)
2.	Cash contributions from sale of the Punggol flat	41,258.50×89%= 36,720.065	41,258.50×11%= 4,538.435
3.	Renovation and furnishing from sale of the Punggol flat	54,609×89%= 48,602.01	54,609×11%= 6,006.99
4.	Other contributions	0.00	28,500
TOTAL	187,427.075	50,827.425
PERCENTAGE SHARE	78.67%	21.33%

The $28,500 listed above under “other contributions” comprised the three items in the table above at [14]. The DJ accepted the Wife’s submission that: (a) she contributed $6,000 in cash to the purchase of the property; (b) the Wife’s parents gave her Rs250,000 (about $7,500) which she used for the furnishing of the Duxton flat; and (c) the Husband had assured the Wife that an earlier sum of Rs500,000 (about $15,000) given to the Husband’s parents to resolve issues in India would be taken as the Wife’s contribution to the Duxton flat.

The DJ arrived at the result that the direct contributions of the Husband and the Wife to the Duxton flat were 79% and 21% respectively. The DJ decided to round up the Wife’s share in the Duxton flat to 25% because the DJ reasoned that if not for the marriage, the parties would not have been able to form the family nucleus required to purchase a Housing Development Board (“HDB”) flat and make a profit from it.

The arguments on appeal

The Punggol flat

Both the Husband and the Wife are unsatisfied with the DJ’s approach to their contributions to the Punggol flat.

The Husband argues that the DJ erred in holding that the husband contributed only $23,650 to the Punggol flat. The Husband contends that he contributed more than $125,105.56 to the Punggol flat and its renovation...