JUDGMENT

Nallini Pathmanathan FCJ:

[1] The core issue in this appeal is whether the withdrawal of the Creditor's Petition will terminate all bankruptcy proceedings including the bankruptcy notice. This is reflected in the questions of law put forward for our consideration.

Salient Facts

[2] The chronology of events discloses the following salient facts:

(i) The bankruptcy notice was issued on 17 December 2018;

(ii) Without any application to set aside the bankruptcy notice, the act of bankruptcy would have occurred on 25 December 2018;

(iii) However, prior to 25 December 2018, the judgment debtor filed an application to set aside the bankruptcy notice under r 93 of the Insolvency Rules 2017;

(iv) The Registrar ruled that the application to set aside in encl 6 was inadequate in that there was no affidavit in support and did not deal with it. Instead, the Registrar held that an act of bankruptcy occurred on 25 December 2018, as if no application to set aside was before the Court;

(v) Accordingly, the judgment creditor went on to file a Creditor's Petition;

(vi) On the judgment debtor's appeal to the Judge in Chambers, the learned Judge set aside the declaration of an act of bankruptcy holding, as per r 93 that, as the setting aside application had not been heard, no act of bankruptcy could occur. It is not in issue that at the time of the hearing before the Court of Appeal, the setting aside application in encl 6 had not been heard.

(vii) At the hearing of the Creditor's Petition before the Registrar, matters were compounded further when the Registrar allowed the judgment creditor to withdraw the Creditor's Petition with liberty to file afresh, but then went on to rule that all bankruptcy proceedings stood terminated solely by reason of the withdrawal.