Shepherdson, Terence Christopher v Singapore Recreation Club

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Woo Bih Li J
• Judgment Date: 21 December 2017
• Neutral Citation: [2017] SGHC 323
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Hearing Date: 15 August 2017,03 November 2017
• Docket Number: Originating Summons No 218 of 2017
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ganesh S Ramanathan (Karuppan Chettiar & Partners)
• Defendant Counsel: Foo Soon Yien and Thaddeus Oh (Bernard & Rada Law Corporation
• Subject Matter: Unincorporated associations and trade unions,Friendly societies,Offences
• Published date: 22 December 2017

Woo Bih Li J: Introduction

The plaintiff, Shepherdson Terence Christopher (“S”) is a member of Singapore Recreation Club (“SRC”). As a result of his conduct at the 2016 Annual General Meeting of SRC (“the 2016 AGM”), he was suspended by SRC for one year and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000. He filed this action to set aside that decision and to claim damages.

Background

I set out below the persons and committees involved in the matter:

S/No	Abbreviation	Description
(a)	CC	The Complaints Committee.
(b)	DC	The Disciplinary Committee.
(c)	MC	The Management Committee.
(d)	RMSC	The Rules and Membership Sub-Committee.
(e)	S	The plaintiff.
(f)	Sarbjit	Dr Sarbjit Singh (current President of the MC).
(g)	Shawn	Shawn Chua – member of SRC. First complainant. Since deceased.
(h)	Maxwell	Maxwell Norbert Fernando – member of SRC. Second complainant.
(i)	Elizabeth	Paul Elizabeth – member of SRC. Third complainant.
(j)	Kertar	Kertar Singh – Chairman of the CC.
(k)	Amarjeet	Amarjeet Singh – Chairman of the DC.
(l)	Shareef	Shareef Jaffar – General Manager of SRC.
(m)	Vigneshweri	Vigneshweri Jaikumar – Legal & Corporate Services Executive of SRC.
(n)	Fabian	Fabian Chan. A member of the MC who recused himself from hearing S’ appeal.
(o)	Ronald	Ronald Wee. A member of the MC who recused himself from hearing S’ appeal.
(p)	Peng Kee	Tay Peng Kee. A member of the MC who recused himself from hearing S’ appeal.

The 2016 AGM was held on 16 April 2016 at the Raffles City Convention Centre (“RCCC”).

After a quorum was reached, Sarbjit began to address the meeting as chairman of the meeting. At that time, he was also Vice-President of the MC. However, S interrupted him by raising a point of order. His point was that the voting booth should be opened immediately after a quorum was reached. On this point, he was relying on Rule 35(e)(ii) of SRC’s Constitution and also the Notice calling for the 2016 AGM. In other words, he wanted members to be allowed to cast their votes (for those matters which were to be subject to voting at the 2016 AGM) without having to wait for Sarbjit to conclude his speech. However, Sarbjit disagreed and was of the view that the voting booth could be opened after he had concluded his speech. He told S to sit down. There was an altercation between Sarbjit and S and some other members were involved too. Consequently, S left the hall where the 2016 AGM was being held and Sarbjit continued with his speech. The voting booth was opened after Sarbjit concluded his speech. I will say more about Rule 35(e)(ii) later.

On 20 April 2016, 22 April 2016 and 25 April 2016 respectively, Shawn, Maxwell and Elizabeth each sent a written complaint to SRC about S’ conduct at the 2016 AGM.

On 26 April 2016, SRC wrote to inform S about Shawn’s complaint. On 29 April 2016, SRC wrote to S to inform him of the complaints of Maxwell and Elizabeth and said that the gist of their complaints was similar to that of Shawn.

On 5 May 2016, S sent an email to SRC to request a copy of the complaints of Maxwell and Elizabeth. Although S said in his first affidavit that he was not given a copy of Shawn’s complaint, he apparently did not ask for a copy of that complaint.

On 6 May 2016, S sent a letter to SRC to respond to the three complaints.

On 10 May 2016, SRC sent two emails to S. One reiterated that the gist of Maxwell’s and Elizabeth’s complaints was similar in nature to certain paragraphs of SRC’s letter to S dated 26 April 2016. The other informed S that his letter of explanation dated 6 May 2016 would be shown to the CC when it was appointed. S’ request for copies of the two complaints by Maxwell and Elizabeth was not acceded to.

On 10 July 2016, Shawn passed away. SRC took the position that his complaint was to be treated as withdrawn.

On 29 August 2016, SRC wrote to S to inform him: that the CC would convene at 7pm on 30 August 2016 to consider the two remaining complaints; S was not required to attend before the CC; and the CC would review S’ explanation letter.

The CC issued a report dated 30 August 2016 (“the CC Report”) in which the CC recommended that the complaints be referred to a disciplinary committee and also recommended that S be charged for boisterous and unruly conduct which was prejudicial to the interest of SRC.

On 29 September 2016, the RMSC considered the CC Report and nominated Amarjeet as Chairman of the DC and two other persons as members of the DC with Amarjeet.

On 10 October 2016, the MC approved the nominations of these three persons as members of the DC.

In the meantime, Sarbjit submitted a statement dated 5 October 2016 to the RMSC about S’ conduct at the 2016 AGM (“Sarbjit’s statement”).

On 12 October 2016, SRC wrote to S to inform him of the outcome of the hearing by the CC and the date of the inquiry by the DC, which was 2 November 2016. This letter also said that two charges had been recommended against S and set out the charges.

The first charge was for disorderly and boisterous behaviour by shouting at the top of his voice when Sarbjit was delivering his opening address at the 2016 AGM, which behaviour was in breach of Rule 30(b)(vi) of SRC’s Constitution.

The second charge was for deliberately heckling Sarbjit when he was delivering his opening address at the 2016 AGM and continuing to heckle even though S was repeatedly warned not to disrupt, which conduct was in breach of Rule 30(b)(xiii) of SRC’s Constitution.

The DC hearing was held in the Boardroom of SRC on 2 November 2016. S attended the hearing. He also wrote a letter dated 2 November 2016 to the DC raising various issues.

SRC said that at the hearing on 2 November 2016, the complaints of Maxwell and Elizabeth were displayed on a television screen and also read out to S. Various witnesses were called including Sarbjit, Maxwell, Elizabeth and S.

On 8 November 2016, the DC issued its written report. The DC found S guilty of both charges and recommended that S be fined $1,000 on the first charge and be suspended for 12 months on the second charge.

On 16 November 2016, SRC wrote to S to notify him of the DC’s decision and that he had 14 days to appeal against that decision to the MC.

On 28 November 2016, S’ lawyers M/s Karuppan Chettiar & Partners wrote to SRC to state that S was appealing against the decision of the DC and to state the reasons for the appeal.

On 12 December 2016, the MC held a meeting to consider the appeal. Four members of the MC recused themselves from the meeting, leaving seven members to continue with their deliberation. I will flag out here that the recusal of some of the members of the MC eventually became an especially important point which I will elaborate on later. Suffice it to say for now that the remaining seven members eventually decided to uphold the decision of the DC.

On 14 December 2016, SRC wrote to inform S of the MC’s decision.

On 28 February 2017, S commenced the present action.

The arguments and the court’s conclusions

S’ action was heard by me on 15 August 2017 and 3 November 2017. Various arguments were raised for S but S’ arguments were narrowed to five points in the further submissions of S dated 30 October 2017. Even then, one of the five points was withdrawn during oral submissions at the second tranche of the hearing, leaving four points. They were: The two charges were invalid because the CC had recommended that one charge be preferred but the DC proceeded to press two charges against S instead. The two charges were invalid because under the relevant rules, S’ conduct had to be committed within the premises of SRC whereas the 2016 AGM was held at RCCC, which was not the physical premises of SRC. The members of the DC were biased against S. The MC did not give S a fair hearing when it excluded three members of the MC, in addition to Sarbjit, from the MC’s deliberation of S’ appeal against the decision of the DC.

The first two points required a consideration of the circumstances which led to the pressing of two charges, instead of one, against S.

As mentioned above, the CC had recommended that one charge be pressed against S for boisterous and unruly conduct which was prejudicial to the interest of SRC.

After the DC was appointed, Vigneshweri informed Amarjeet orally on 11 October 2016 that he had been appointed as Chairman of the DC and the names of the other two members of the DC. Amarjeet was also informed that he could collect a hard copy of a set of documents from the clubhouse.

Later that same day, Amarjeet went to the clubhouse and collected a set of documents from Vigneshweri, comprising: the three complaints (as Shawn’s complaint was also included even though it was treated as withdrawn); S’ letter dated 6 May 2016 in response to the complaints; the CC Report; and Sarbjit’s statement.

Vigneshweri also played a video recording of S’ conduct at the 2016 AGM for Amarjeet. After watching the video and considering the documents, Amarjeet was of the view that the complaints disclosed possible breaches of two rules of SRC’s Constitution, ie, Rule 30(b)(xiii), which had been recommended by the CC, and Rule 30(b)(vi), which had not been recommended by the CC. These two rules state: 30. DISCIPLINARY ACTION

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(b) A Member committing any of the following acts within the Club premises and its precincts, and outside the Club premises if such member is in the capacity as an Official and/or Representative of the Club, shall be subject to disciplinary action:-

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vi) Abusive, disorderly and/or boisterous behaviour;

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xiii) Any conduct which in any way brings disrepute and is prejudicial to the interest of...