AVINDERPAL SINGH S/O RANJIT SINGH v David Dong-Won Kim & Anor

Facts

Mr Avinderpal Singh s/o Ranjit Singh and Mr Tarun Hotchand Chainani were the equal shareholders and only directors of Avitar Enterprises Pte Ltd (AEPL), now in liquidation; the respondents are its joint and several liquidators. In earlier proceedings in HC/S 703/2020, the court found in Tarun Hotchand Chainani v Avinderpal Singh s/o Ranjit Singh [2024] SGHC 117 that Mr Singh had used AEPL's money to buy properties on AEPL's behalf under an understanding with Mr Chainani and had breached it by failing to account. After the account was taken in [2025] SGHC 110, he was ordered to pay the sums found due to AEPL. On 24 July 2025 AEPL served a statutory demand on him for those sums.

On 11 August 2025 Mr Singh lodged a proof of debt with the liquidators and the same day applied to set aside the statutory demand on the basis that AEPL owed him more. On 20 August 2025 the liquidators partly rejected the proof. They rejected the Group B claims, totalling US$658,232.50, as claims Mr Singh was not the proper party to bring: nine sums third parties had allegedly paid AEPL as repayments of loans to him (Group B1), and sums for 2016 salary of his brother Davin said to have been wrongly set off (Group B2). They rejected the Group C claims, totalling S$757,873.30, as unsupported: a claim to S$750,000 in 2007 directors' fees, storage rental and registered office fees. They also rejected his interest claims. Mr Singh applied in HC/OA 1014/2025 under r 132(1) of the CIR Rules to reverse or vary that decision.

Issues

1. Whether Mr Singh proved that AEPL owed him the Group B1 sums paid to AEPL by third parties
2. Whether Mr Singh proved that AEPL owed him the Group B2 salary sums
3. Whether Mr Singh proved the Group C claims for directors' fees and expenses paid on AEPL's behalf
4. Whether Mr Singh established any entitlement to interest

Holding

The court dismissed OA 1014, finding that Mr Singh had not discharged his burden of proving any of the rejected debts, and awarded the liquidators costs fixed at S$12,000 (all in).

Reasoning

The court heard the application afresh on the evidence before it, with the burden on the creditor to prove the debt, following Rich Construction Co Pte Ltd v Greatearth Construction Pte Ltd [2024] 5 SLR 570.

On Group B1, Mr Singh relied on the earlier finding that sums he took from AEPL were not loans to him. Taking his proof at face value, he never identified the supposedly mistaken loans, most ledger entries did not show what the third parties' payments were for, one entry described a loan from him rather than to him, and he called none of the third parties. His affidavit version, that he had repaid the third parties on AEPL's behalf from his own funds, came with no proof of payment and was confusing and inconsistent; if AEPL owed the third parties nothing, his recourse would lie against them, not AEPL.

On Group B2, he showed neither what salary was due to Davin nor that he paid it, and again did not identify the loans allegedly wrongly set off.

On the directors' fees, the 2007 accounts recording S$1,500,000 of directors' fees did not show what was payable to him or whether it was paid. Even assuming S$750,000 was due, he only asserted that it had been set off against the sums used to buy Mandarin Gardens and Evelyn Road, the auditor's email did not show this, and his failure to raise the point in the account-taking cast doubt on his credibility. The spreadsheet offered for the storage and office fees was unexplained. Nor had he shown any basis for interest.

From the judgment