Three years ago, a High Court freed Captain Bir Singh, now 66, after allowing his appeal from a 2019 sessions court decision jailing him for two years and imposing a RM300,000 fine.
A three-member bench chaired by Justice Kamaludin Said today said documents tendered by two policemen at the trial did not show Bir to be an unlicensed moneylender.
“The ingredient of the charge as to whether the respondent has licence to lend money was in doubt,” said Kamaludin, who sat with Justices Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Nazlan Ghazali.
The bench also agreed with lawyer Afifuddin Ahmad Hafifi that under the Moneylenders Act 1951, the registrar of the housing and local government department must certify that an accused person has no licence to operate.
Earlier today, Afifuddin also submitted that the High Court ruling should be maintained as there was a defect in the charge framed against Bir.
He said the charge stated Bir had lent RM600,000, but a prosecution witness testified that the sum was RM375,000.
“No interest was mentioned in the charge sheet. Moneylending is not illegal per se provided one does not charge interest,” he said.
The lawyer said the prosecution failed to prove that Bir was an unlicensed moneylender.
Afifuddin said the policemen had conducted a search on the internet and noted that Bir’s name was not listed in a register of licensed moneylenders.
Such searches cannot assure the veracity or correctness of the information, he added.
Deputy public prosecutor Fuad Abdul Aziz appeared for the prosecution.
In the sessions court, Bir was told to enter his defence based on the testimony of a prosecution witness who stated that the loan was given by Bir to Peter Paul, the complainant in the case.
Bir was charged with lending RM600,000 to Paul in an unlicensed business transaction between October 2011 and April 2012 at RHB Bank Bhd, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Kuala Lumpur.
The charge under Section 5(2) of the Moneylenders Act 1951 carries a maximum fine of RM1 million or imprisonment of up to five years, or both, and caning for repeat offenders.