VOM v VON

The Wife (VOM) and the Husband (VON) married in India on 1 December 2007 and were both permanent residents of Singapore. They obtained an interim judgment of divorce in Singapore on 11 June 2018, made final on 15 April 2021. Tan Puay Boon JC decided the ancillary matters and made orders in FC/ORC 107/2021 on 4 March 2021 (the AM Order).

In HCF/SUM 385/2022, in Divorce Transferred No 4800 of 2017, the Husband applied to the High Court (Family Division) to set aside the AM Order. He claimed the Wife had put forward fictitious documents about 20 Indian bank accounts that, he said, did not exist, and argued that India, not Singapore, was the proper forum.

1. Whether s 121F of the Women's Charter allowed the Husband to argue that India was the more appropriate forum.
2. Whether the AM Order should be set aside as procured by fraud.

The forum argument misread the Charter. Chapter 4A, which contains s 121F, applies to financial relief after a foreign divorce, not to a divorce decided by the Singapore courts (s 121B). A forum objection also belongs at the start of proceedings, and the Husband had submitted to the Singapore court's jurisdiction by his conduct since 2017.

On fraud, the 20 disputed accounts had been before Tan JC and dealt with in his grounds. The Husband was in substance saying the judge got the facts wrong, which is a matter for appeal, not a setting-aside application. Counsel accepted the procedural error. In any case, the supposed fresh evidence was in the same documents the judge had relied on, so there was nothing new to support the fraud allegation.

The court dismissed the Husband's application to set aside the AM Order and ordered costs of $2,000 inclusive of disbursements.