DEVIN JETHANAND BHOJWANI & 2 Ors v JETHANAND HARKISHINDAS BHOJWANI

Facts

In Suit No 521 of 2021, three sons, Devin, Dilip and Sandeep Jethanand Bhojwani, sued their father, Jethanand Harkishindas Bhojwani, for breach of trust. He is trustee of a trust whose named beneficiaries are the sons and their mother, and whose assets include shares in companies in the family's "Shankar's Group". After the father struck off or dissolved several of them, three remained: Shankar's Emporium (Private) Limited, Malaya Silk Store Pte Ltd and Liberty Merchandising Company (Private) Limited (the Live Companies).

The sons' expert needed documents for his report. The father refused to give them, relying on issue estoppel and the extended doctrine of res judicata after an earlier round of specific discovery. The Live Companies refused some documents as confidential and commercially sensitive and offered disclosure only to the expert. On 14 April 2023 Goh Yihan JC ordered discovery of most of the documents in HC/SUM 462/2023 (against the Live Companies) and HC/SUM 463/2023 (against the father), with an interim stay. Both sought permission to appeal and applied for a stay of the discovery orders pending appeal: the Live Companies in HC/SUM 1168/2023 and the father in HC/SUM 1169/2023. Trial was fixed to begin on 24 July 2023.

Issues

1. Whether an intention to appeal is a matter occurring since the order for the purpose of a stay under O 45 r 11 of the Rules of Court 2014
2. Whether the need to obtain permission to appeal counts against a stay pending appeal
3. Whether the Live Companies' appeal would be rendered nugatory without a stay
4. Whether the father had shown grounds for a stay of the discovery orders against him

Holding

The court allowed both stay applications under O 45 r 11, so the discovery orders in SUM 462 and SUM 463 were stayed pending the applications for permission to appeal. It found no need to rely on the court's inherent powers under O 92 r 4. Costs of both applications were to be in the appeal or, if permission was refused, in the application for permission to appeal.

Reasoning

An appeal does not itself stay execution and the applicant must show special circumstances, but the court must also ensure that a successful appeal is not rendered nugatory and must hold the balance between the parties.

The court rejected the sons' argument that nothing within O 45 r 11 had been raised: an intention to appeal is a matter arising after the order, otherwise the rules could not accommodate a stay pending appeal at all. The inherent powers in O 92 r 4 should not be a backdoor where another rule applies.

Nor did the need for permission to appeal count against a stay. The passage relied on from Lee Sian Hee concerned the merits and the substantive steps still needed there, whereas needing permission says nothing about the outcome of the appeal.

For the Live Companies, the Riddick undertaking and the sons' offered undertakings not to disseminate and to destroy the documents would guard against disclosure to third parties, but not against disclosure to the sons themselves, which was the core of their concern; once seen, the documents could not be un-disclosed. The sons' prejudice, tighter timelines for their expert, was not insurmountable because trial dates could be adjusted.

The father's bare assertion that he would appeal was not in itself enough. A stay was still granted to him to keep consistency with the outcome in SUM 1168, since the timelines would be affected anyway.

From the judgment