03.2015 was computed on the balance of RM9,576,880.90 a balance which includes the interest of RM69,357.59 debited the month before. The computation contained in the Affidavit in Reply of Khoo Wei Boon affirmed on 25.03.2026 demonstrates that if the February interest were excluded, the base would be RM9,507,523.31 and the March interest, at 9.35% per annum for 31 days, would be RM75,500.15 and not RM76,047.73. [16] The Plaintiff's answers on affidavit are principally contained in the Affidavits in Reply of Piong Tick Too affirmed on 12.01.2026 and 27.02.2026. They state, in substance: that the monthly interest is computed on the facility balance owed without taking accrued interest into account, and illustrate this by deductions of RM723.61, RM178.27 and RM392.20 made from the computation base in respect of accumulated late payment interest for periods in April and May 2015; that late payment interest is kept separate from the prescribed interest and itself attracts no further interest; that any payment received is applied first towards accrued interest before reduction of principal; and, as to the entries of October and November 2014, that the debits of RM46,587.33 and RM79,410.96, the credit adjustment of RM13,525.35 and the further debit of RM22,506.85 reflect the two-tranche disbursement, the correction of a system error and the application of the contractual 12% progressive rate, with no double charging of interest. [17] It is not disputed that the Facility was utilised in full, that the Borrower and the Defendant are in default, that no payment has been made since the service of the Form 16D, and that the Defendant has taken no step to remedy the breach specified in the notice. What is disputed is whether the account was maintained on a basis which compounds interest and, in consequence, whether the sums demanded in the Form 16D are sums lawfully due. ISSUES FOR DETERMINATION [18] The following issues arise for determination. [19] First, whether contentions founded upon the MLA are justiciable in an application under section 256 of the NLC, or whether they are excluded as matters in personam which cannot resist an action in rem ("the threshold issue"). [20] Secondly, whether such contentions are open to the Defendant as chargor and corporate guarantor, and whether the Defendant is precluded from advancing them by estoppel, by the doctrine against approbation and reprobation, or by reason that the material relied upon derives from affidavits filed in the earlier proceedings or from submission alone ("the preclusion issue"). [21] Thirdly, whether the account under the Loan Agreement was maintained on a basis which provides for or effects the payment of compound interest, contrary to section 17(1) of the MLA ("the compounding issue"). [22] Fourthly, whether the Form 16D dated 14.08.2025 demands sums lawfully due, and the effect upon it of the conclusive evidence clause in the Loan Agreement ("the notice issue"). [23] Fifthly, whether, upon the answers to the foregoing, cause to the contrary within section 256(3) of the NLC is made out, and the consequential orders. GOVERNING LAW AND FRAMEWORK [24] Section 256(3) of the NLC provides that on an application for an order for sale the Court "shall order the sale of the land or lease to which the charge relates" unless it is satisfied of the existence of "cause to the contrary". The statutory remedy accrues to the chargee only upon the chargor's failure to remedy the default specified in the Form 16D within the time limited by it: Peh Lai Huat v MBF Finance Bhd [2011] 3 MLJ 470 (CA). [25] The governing exposition of "cause to the contrary" is that of the Federal Court in Low Lee Lian v Ban Hin Lee Bank Bhd [1997] 1 MLJ 77 (FC). Cause to the contrary may be established in three categories only: first, where the chargor brings the case within one of the exceptions to indefeasibility in section 340 of the NLC; secondly, where the chargor demonstrates that the chargee has failed to meet the conditions precedent for the making of the application the Federal Court instancing not only a failure to prove the making or service of a demand, but equally the case "where the notice demands sums not lawfully due from the chargee", citing Co-operative Central Bank Ltd v Meng Kuang Properties Bhd [1991] 2 MLJ 283 (HC); and thirdly, where the chargor demonstrates that the grant of the order would be contrary to some rule of law or equity. The Federal Court added a material qualification to the second category: in such a case it remains open to the chargee to serve a proper notice and to commence proceedings afresh, since cause shown under that limb does not in substance destroy the chargee's right to apply for an order for sale. [26] The MLA is protective legislation. As the Court of Appeal held in Powernet Industries Sdn Bhd v Golden Wheel Credit Sdn Bhd [2020] 10 CLJ 374 (CA), the Act was enacted to regulate and control the business of moneylending and, relevantly, to protect borrowers, who constitute a vulnerable class; and Parliament has not merely criminalised non-compliance but has declared certain non-compliance illegal and unenforceable, including under sections 15, 17 and 17A of the Act. [27] Section 17(1) of the MLA provides that any moneylending agreement made after the commencement of the Act "for the loan of money by a moneylender shall be illegal in so far as it provides, directly or indirectly, for the payment of compound interest, or for the rate or amount of interest to be increased by reason of any default in the payment of sums due under the moneylending agreement". The proviso permits one thing only upon default: the moneylender may charge simple interest on the unpaid sum or instalment at 8% per annum, calculated from day to day from the date of default until payment, and such interest is not reckoned as part of the interest charged in respect of the loan. [28] The meaning of interest computed on "monthly rests" is settled. In Malayan Banking Bhd v Foo See Moi [1981] 2 MLJ 17 (FC), the Federal Court, adopting the speech of Lord Atkinson in Yourell v Hibernian Bank [1918] AC 372 and the commentary in Paget's Law of Banking, recognised that the provision for periodical rests, by debiting interest to the account and thereby increasing the capital sum, secures to the lender the benefit of compound interest a legitimate mode of dealing as between banker and customer while that relationship subsists. Paget's Law of Banking (10th edition), page 247, states the distinction with precision: the computing of interest must be distinguished from compounding, "which is the capitalization of interest so that interest itself yields interest". In Re Woo Yoke San; ex parte OCBC Bank (M) Bhd [2006] 2 CLJ 589 (HC), at paragraph [32], the Court explained that where interest is calculated on a daily basis with monthly rests, the interest calculated for each completed month "will be capitalised and ultimately will attract interest at the same rate for the next months", the process continuing every subsequent month — "in effect, it is just like compound interest or interest upon interest". In Re Lee Hong; ex parte Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Bhd [2021] MLJU 02267 (HC), "monthly rest" was described in terms as a banking term for compound interest. What the banking cases legitimise as between banker and customer, section 17(1) of the MLA denies to a licensed moneylender in absolute terms. [29] Finally, the construction of the Loan Agreement is a question of law for the Court. The Federal Court in Far East Holdings Bhd & Anor v Majlis Ugama Islam dan Adat Resam Melayu Pahang and other appeals [2018] 1 MLJ 1 (FC) authoritatively held that the construction of a document is a question of law, to be decided by the Court untrammelled by any concession or assertion of the parties; the principle was applied in Majestic Panorama Sdn Bhd v Xperanti Lot (M) Sdn Bhd [2023] MLJU 977 (HC). In NVJ Menon v The Great Eastern Life Assurance Co Ltd [2004] 3 MLJ 38 (CA), reliance upon the parties' own evidence for the interpretation of a contract was held to be an inadmissible method of construction. ANALYSIS AND DETERMINATION The Threshold Issue: The In Rem Character Of Foreclosure [30] It is settled that an application for an order for sale is an action in rem, directed against the land itself and not against the person. That is the ratio consistently applied in Hap Seng Credit Sdn Bhd v Rentak Arena (M) Sdn Bhd [2017] 9 MLJ 169 (HC); Jigarlal K Doshi @ Jigarlal a/l Kantilal Doshi v Resolution Alliance Sdn Bhd and another appeal [2013] 3 MLJ 61 (CA), at paragraph [19]; Tengku Azman Tengku Adnan & Anor v Hong Leong Bank Berhad [2014] CLJU 478 (CA); Arab-Malaysian Finance Bhd v Razshah Enterprises Sdn Bhd [2016] 9 CLJ 617 (CA), at paragraph [51]; and Ambank Bhd v Chidambara Nathan a/I MST Muthusamy & Anor [2014] 2 MLJ 86 (CA), at paragraph [19]. Upon that footing, allegations of breach of contract by the chargee, or challenges to the calculation of interest under the loan agreement which amount to no more than a dispute over quantum, do not without more constitute cause to the contrary; they sound in personam and are matters for a separate suit. [31] That body of authority, however, operates within the framework of Low Lee Lian and not in derogation of it. The second category in Low Lee Lian in terms comprehends the case "where the notice demands sums not lawfully due"; the third comprehends the case where the grant of the order would be contrary to some rule of law. Neither category can be excluded from consideration merely by describing the objection as contractual. The true distinction is this. A complaint that the chargee has miscomputed or overcharged interest within a lawful contractual framework is a dispute over the state of accounts; it is an in personam matter which does not impeach the statutory demand, and the authorities cited above so hold. A complaint that the sums demanded in the Form 16D include interest which a statute prohibits the moneylender from charging at all stands upon an entirely different footing: it asserts that the statutory precondition of a valid demand has not been met, and that the Court is being asked to lend its process to the realisation of sums declared illegal by written law. Such a complaint falls squarely within the second and third categories of Low Lee Lian. To hold otherwise would be to read those categories out of the Federal Court's formulation. [32] The subsequent authorities confirm that the distinction is real and is applied. In Wong Soon Kion v CIMB Bank Berhad [2019] 1 MLRA 584 (CA), the Court of Appeal held, for the purposes of section 256(3), that cause to the contrary may be shown where the notice demands sums not lawfully due, that the Court is concerned with the narrow question whether the material produced by the chargor constitutes such cause, and that discrepancies demonstrating that the amount claimed under the Form 16D was not the amount lawfully due to the chargee established cause to the contrary. In Multi-Purpose Bank Bhd v Maimoon bte Abdul Razak [1999] 6 MLJ 215 (HC), the computation of interest upon a factor not permitted by the mutual consent of the parties, claimed as due in the Form 16D, was itself held to be cause to the contrary for refusing the order. In Perwira Affin Bank Bhd v WT Low & Ng Realty Sdn Bhd [1997] 5 MLJ 185 (HC), the Court drew the distinction between a merely erroneous sum specified in a notice of demand and a wrongful demand for payment of something to which the chargee is not entitled: the latter vitiates. Where the want of entitlement arises not from the contract but from a statutory prohibition, the case for scrutiny is a fortiori. [33] Nor is the in rem doctrine capable of being pressed to the point at which the Court, exercising the statutory jurisdiction under section 256, must decree a sale to realise sums which written law renders illegal. The principle restated by the Court of Appeal in Lai Chin Wah & Anor v Sitrac Corporation Sdn Bhd [2023] MLJU 891 (CA), adopting the Federal Court in Merong Mahawangsa Sdn Bhd & Anor v Dato' Shazryl Eskay bin Abdullah [2015] 5 MLJ 619 (FC), is that where the contract sought to be enforced is expressly or by implication forbidden by statute, no court will lend its assistance to give effect to it, an unlawful agreement being unenforceable under the Contracts Act 1950. Section 256(3) does not command what the general law forbids; the phrase "cause to the contrary" is the very valve through which considerations of legality enter the exercise. [34] Rentak Arena, a decision concerning this same Plaintiff and pressed as directly in point, does not assist to the contrary. In that case the allegation of compound interest failed on the evidence the Court found that the chargor had not proven that compound interest was charged and the observations upon the in rem character of the proceedings fall to be read in that light. Whether compounding is proven on the present record is precisely the question to which this judgment now turns, after disposing of the preclusion issue. The Preclusion Issue: Standing, Estoppel And The Evidential Objections [35] The contention that the Defendant, being a stranger to the Loan Agreement, has no locus to impugn its validity cannot be accepted. The chargor is the very person whom section 256(3) summons to show cause why its land should not be sold; it is the Defendant's property which is to be realised in satisfaction of the account. A chargor cannot be told that the legality of the account which its land secures is none of its concern. The point is placed beyond doubt by KBH Marine Industry Sdn Bhd & Anor v Ace Credit (M) Sdn Bhd and Other Appeals [2026] 2 MLJ 362 (CA), at paragraph [41]: where the security is inextricably connected to the moneylending agreement, the invalidation of the agreement necessarily invalidates the other loan documents and the security, "because the substratum of the security for the loan is lost when the loan agreement is avoided. This security cannot thereafter stand in isolation." Whatever the outer limits of that principle, it forecloses the argument that the chargor and corporate guarantor is disabled from raising the statutory legality of the very account whose enforcement is sought against its land. [36] The contention that the Defendant is estopped — whether because the Borrower enjoyed the full benefit of the Facility, because the objections were not taken earlier, or otherwise fares no better. It is a fundamental principle that estoppel cannot prevail against a statute enacted in the public interest to protect a class of persons. In Powernet Industries, at paragraphs [71] to [75], the Court of Appeal held that there can be no estoppel in respect of a statute intended to protect borrowers who borrow from licensed moneylenders, a vulnerable class; the protection cannot be waived away by the very persons for whose benefit it was enacted. In M & J Frozen Food Sdn Bhd & Anor v Siland Sdn Bhd & Anor [1994] 1 MLJ 294 (SC), the Supreme Court, adopting the judgment of Edgar Joseph Jr J in United Malayan Banking Corporation Bhd v Syarikat Perumahan Luas Sdn Bhd, affirmed that there cannot be an estoppel to evade the plain provisions of a statute, particularly where the non-compliance goes to the root of the thing. The same principle is restated in KBH Marine, at paragraph [36], adopting Joan Fung @ Joan Fung Nyuk Lee v Allianz General Insurance Co (M) Bhd: an estoppel cannot prevail against a statute, a common law rule of public policy, or protect an illegality. That the objection is said to be lately taken cannot confer legality upon what the statute condemns. [37] The related evidential objections are disposed of shortly. First, the reliance upon affidavits filed in the 2023 proceedings: those affidavits are exhibited in the Affidavits in Reply of Khoo Wei Boon affirmed in these proceedings; once exhibited they are evidence before this Court like any other document, and no rule of evidence renders a party's own prior affidavit inadmissible against it. Secondly, the doctrine against approbation and reprobation invoked on the authority of Cheah Theam Kheng v City Centre Sdn Bhd (In Liquidation) [2012] 1 MLJ 761 (CA) is misplaced: objecting to a disposal by private treaty through a receiver, and resisting a statutory sale by showing cause under section 256(3), are not the assertion of inconsistent rights between which an election must be made; and in any event no election by the Defendant could validate a demand which the statute condemns. [38] Thirdly, the objection to statements from the Bar. Malayan Banking Bhd (formerly known as 'Mayban Finance Bhd') v Boo Hock Soon @ Boo Choo Soon [2013] 2 MLJ 843 (CA), Dr Lim Boon Ping v Sun Pharmaceutical Sdn Bhd [2020] MLJU 1645 (HC) and Dian Kiara Sdn Bhd v GCH Retail (M) Sdn Bhd [2020] 12 MLJ 570 (HC) rightly hold that a crucial factual assertion made only in submission, unsupported by affidavit, is to be disregarded. That principle is applied here: the contention concerning the variation of the interest rate from 9.1% to 9.35% in July 2014, which appears nowhere in the affidavits, is accordingly put aside and forms no part of the reasoning which follows. But the principle does not touch the compounding case. That case rests upon the averments and computations in the Affidavits in Reply of Khoo Wei Boon affirmed on 04.11.2025, 02.02.2026 and 25.03.2026, and significantly upon the Plaintiff's own Affidavits in Reply of 12.01.2026 and 27.02.2026. It is Affidavit evidence, not assertion from the Bar. [39] Section 17(1) is expressed in absolute terms: the moneylending agreement is illegal "in so far as it provides, directly or indirectly, for the payment of compound interest". The proviso permits, upon default, simple interest only, at 8% per annum from day to day upon the unpaid sum or instalment. The prohibition thus operates at two levels: it strikes at the provision - what the agreement stipulates - and, through the words "directly or indirectly", at any mechanism by which interest is in substance made to yield interest, whatever its label. [40] The inquiry begins with the instruments. Item 6 of the First Schedule provides for the prescribed interest to be calculated on a monthly rest basis. Section 6.07 records an independent covenant to pay interest "including capitalized interest". The construction of those provisions is a question of law for the Court: Far East Holdings (FC); NVJ Menon (CA). And the expression "monthly rest" bears a settled meaning in the authorities set out at [28] above: at each monthly rest the interest accrued for the month is capitalised - struck into the balance - and thereafter itself bears interest at the same rate. That is the very definition of compounding: Paget, "the capitalization of interest so that interest itself yields interest"; Re Woo Yoke San, "in effect, it is just like compound interest or interest upon interest"; Foo See Moi, periodical rests securing to the lender "the benefit of compound interest". On their face, therefore, the interest provisions of the Loan Agreement provide for capitalisation. A bank may lawfully contract on that basis with its customer; a licensee under the MLA may not. [41] The averment in the Plaintiff's Affidavit in Reply that, notwithstanding these terms, the Plaintiff has "not in fact imposed any capitalised or compound interest" cannot govern the construction of the instruments; reliance upon a party's own assertion as to what its contract means is an inadmissible method of construction (NVJ Menon, at paragraph [20]). But the assertion deserves examination on its own ground - the account because section 17(1) is concerned with substance as well as form, and because, if the account had in truth been maintained on a simple-interest basis despite the contractual language, the practical complexion of the case would differ. [42] The account does not bear the assertion out; it contradicts it. Three strands of the affidavit evidence, taken together, are decisive. [43] First, the formula. The Plaintiff's own Affidavit in Reply of 12.01.2026, at paragraph 7.2, states that monthly interest is computed upon a base defined as "Prinsipal (baki kemudahan pembiaaan + faedah bulanan terakru)" the facility balance plus accrued monthly interest. A base which includes accrued interest is capitalisation by definition. The formula is not an inference drawn against the Plaintiff; it is the Plaintiff's own description, on oath, of how the account is computed, and it repeats the identical formula set out in the Plaintiff's affidavit filed in the 2023 proceedings. [44] Secondly, the entries. The movement of the account set out at [15] above verifies the formula arithmetically. The monthly interest of RM69,357.59 debited on 24.02.2015 entered the running balance; the monthly interest of RM76,047.73 debited on 24.03.2015 was computed on the enlarged balance of RM9,576,880.90; and upon the counter-computation which the further affidavits do not arithmetically refute the exclusion of the February interest would have produced RM75,500.15. The differential of RM547.58 is modest in amount but decisive in character: it is interest computed upon interest. The prohibition in section 17(1) is not conditioned upon the magnitude of the compounding; it is contravened by its existence. [45] For ease of understanding, and so that the point may be seen without recourse to formulae, the operation of the account over these three months may be shown in tabular form: Table 1: Movement Of The Borrower's Account, January To March 2015 DateEntry In The Statement Of AccountAmount (RM)Running Balance (RM)31.01.2015Balance of the loan account-9,670,196.3124.02.2015Interest for the month is charged and added into the loan balance+69,357.599,739,553.9025.02.2015Monthly instalment is paid-162,673.009,576,880.9024.03.2015Interest for the next month is charged — computed on the balance of RM9,576,880.90, which still contains the February interest of RM69,357.59+76,047.739,652,928.63 Table 2: The Effect Of Including The February Interest In The Balance ComputationAmount(RM)Interest actually charged on24.03.2015,computed on a balance which includes the February interest76,047.73Interest which would have been charged if the February interest were first removed from the balance(RM9,507,523.31×9.35%×31÷365)75,500.15Difference — being interest charged upon interest547.58 [46] In plain terms: the interest for February was not kept in a separate interest account; it was added into the loan balance, and the interest for March was then charged on that enlarged balance. The Borrower was thereby made to pay interest on interest. However modest the difference in any single month, it recurs at every monthly rest over the life of the account, and it is precisely what section 17(1) of the MLA prohibits a licensed moneylender from charging, directly or indirectly. [47] Thirdly, the Plaintiff's Affidavits in Reply, properly analysed, do not meet the point. The averment in the Affidavit in Reply affirmed on 27.02.2026 that the computation base excludes accrued interest is, on its own illustrations, directed to late payment interest: the deductions of RM723.61, RM178.27 and RM392.20 demonstrate that accumulated default interest was kept out of the base. That may be accepted, and it shows compliance with the proviso in one respect: default interest was not itself compounded. But it does not answer the distinct and anterior point that accrued prescribed monthly interest entered the base - as the formula states in terms and as the entries confirm. An account may abstain from compounding default interest and yet compound the prescribed interest; section 17(1) prohibits both, directly or indirectly. Likewise, the averment that payments are appropriated first towards accrued interest before reduction of principal is sound banking practice but answers a different question: appropriation determines how a payment reduces the account; it does not determine the base upon which the next month's interest is struck. In any month in which the instalment equalled or exceeded the month's interest, capitalisation would leave little arithmetical trace; in the months in which it did not - as the entries of early 2015 demonstrate - the unpaid interest rolled into the balance and bore interest. [48] The conclusion on the compounding issue follows. The Loan Agreement provides, and the account under it was operated, on a basis under which interest is capitalised at monthly rests and itself yields interest. To that extent the moneylending agreement is illegal under section 17(1) of the MLA, and interest so compounded was not lawfully chargeable by the Plaintiff. The Notice Issue: Whether The Form 16D Demands Sums Lawfully Due [49] Two of the complaints levelled against the Form 16D fail, and it is right to say so plainly. First, the asserted internal inconsistency between the sum of RM7,907,624.73 and the sum of RM6,714,406.61: on a plain reading of the notice, the former is the total indebtedness due and owing as at 11.08.2025, inclusive of principal and accrued interest, while the latter is the principal base upon which further interest runs from 12.08.2025 until settlement. The two figures serve different functions within the notice, and no contradiction arises. Secondly, the complaint that interest at 8% per annum "computed on a daily basis" is charged on a wrong basis: the rate and the daily computation there stated track the proviso to section 17(1) of the MLA, which itself prescribes simple interest at 8% per annum calculated from day to day upon default. No independent illegality appears in that element of the notice as formulated. [50] The Form 16D nonetheless fails at a more fundamental level. The sum of RM7,907,624.73 demanded and equally the base figure of RM6,714,406.61 are the terminal figures of a running account maintained since October 2014 upon the computation found at [43] to [47] above to contravene section 17(1). The demand therefore comprises, indistinguishably and cumulatively over more than a decade of monthly rests, principal, interest lawfully accrued, and interest unlawfully compounded. [51] The consequence is settled by authority. In Meng Kuang Properties, the sum demanded in the notice comprised not only the capital and the prescribed interest but also interest which the lender was not entitled to impose; the Court held that the sum demanded could not be equated with the sum lawfully outstanding, and the demand and the Form 16D founded upon it were ineffectual. Low Lee Lian adopts that very case as the illustration of the second category of cause to the contrary. Wong Soon Kion holds that where the material shows that the amount claimed under the Form 16D is not the amount lawfully due, cause to the contrary exists. Multi-Purpose Bank v Maimoon holds that a claim in the statutory notice computed upon an impermissible basis is itself cause to refuse the order. The present case is stronger than each of those, for the impermissibility here is statutory: the excess is not merely uncontracted-for, it is illegal. [52] It is no answer that some lesser sum is undoubtedly due and owing, or that the Borrower has enjoyed the full benefit of the Facility. Both propositions are true. But the statutory precondition under sections 254 and 256 of the NLC is a demand which specifies the breach and demands sums lawfully due; and the inability of the Defendant or of the Court to state precisely what portion of RM7,907,624.73 is lawfully due is the direct product of the manner in which the Plaintiff has kept its account. It is not the function of the Court, in the summary jurisdiction in rem under section 256, to reconstruct a decade of monthly computations in order to salvage a lawful balance from an unlawful method. The demand stands or falls as made; on the findings above, it demands sums not lawfully due. [53] The conclusive evidence clause does not rescue the notice. Section 14.18 of the Loan Agreement provides that a certificate of indebtedness or statement of account issued by the Plaintiff shall be conclusive evidence of the amount due. The nature of such a clause is settled: Cempaka Finance Bhd v Ho Lai Ying (trading as KH Trading) & Anor [2006] 2 MLJ 685 (FC) holds that it operates in the field of adjectival law, excusing the lender from adducing proof of the debt and shifting the burden of disproof to the other party; KGI Securities (Singapore) Pte Ltd v Nelson Fernandez [2018] 1 LNS 1380 (HC) holds that the stated indebtedness is conclusive in the absence of manifest error or fraud. Here the error is manifest in the strict sense: it appears on the face of the material — from the computation formula stated in the Plaintiff's own Affidavit in Reply and from the entries of the statement of account. Beyond that, and more fundamentally, a contractual stipulation between lender and borrower cannot conclusively establish as owing that which the statute declares it illegal for the lender to charge. To hold otherwise would permit the protection of section 17(1) to be contracted away by the very instrument the Act regulates — the result which Powernet Industries and M & J Frozen Food forbid. [54] It follows that cause to the contrary within section 256(3) of the NLC is established under two of the three categories in Low Lee Lian: under the second category, because the Form 16D dated 14.08.2025 demands sums not lawfully due; and under the third category, because the grant of an order for sale to realise sums which include interest rendered illegal by section 17(1) of the MLA would be contrary to a rule of law the Court will not lend its assistance to give effect to that which statute forbids (Lai Chin Wah, adopting Merong Mahawangsa). [55] Having reached that conclusion, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to decide the further and wider questions canvassed on the affidavits, and they are expressly left open: (i) whether the compounding, or the entries of October and November 2014 concerning the debits of RM46,587.33, RM79,410.96 and RM22,506.85 and the adjustment of RM13,525.35, carried the effective rate of interest beyond the ceiling of 12% per annum for a secured loan, so as to render the agreement void and unenforceable in its entirety under section 17A(3) of the MLA; (ii) whether, in consequence of illegality, the Charge is defeasible under section 340(2)(b) of the NLC within the first category of Low Lee Lian, or falls with the agreement upon the principle in KBH Marine; (iii) the objections founded on sections 2A, 4A and 10P of the MLA concerning the prescribed form of moneylending agreement and the approval of the Registrar of Moneylenders dated 05.07.2004; and (iv) the objection founded on section 18 of the MLA concerning the keeping of accounts. Each of these raises substantial questions with consequences extending well beyond this application; none needs to be resolved for its disposal; and judicial restraint counsels against deciding them. [56] Consistently with the qualification in Low Lee Lian itself, cause shown under the second category "does not in substance affect the chargee's right to apply for an order for sale". It remains open to the Plaintiff to constitute its account upon a basis conforming to section 17(1) of the MLA, to serve a fresh notice in Form 16D demanding sums lawfully due, and, should the breach remain unremedied, to commence proceedings afresh. The dismissal which follows is without prejudice to that course, and nothing in these grounds determines the quantum lawfully recoverable by the Plaintiff in the pending or any other proceedings in personam. CONCLUSION [57] The issues are answered as follows. Contentions that the sums demanded in a Form 16D include interest prohibited by the MLA are justiciable in an application under section 256 of the NLC, falling within the second and third categories of Low Lee Lian; the in rem character of the proceeding excludes bare contractual disputes over quantum, not challenges to the lawfulness of the demand itself. Those contentions are open to the Defendant as chargor, and no estoppel, election or evidential bar precludes them. On the formula stated in the Plaintiff's own Affidavit in Reply and on the face of the statement of account, the account under the Loan Agreement was maintained on a basis which capitalises monthly interest so that interest yields interest, contrary to section 17(1) of the MLA. The Form 16D dated 14.08.2025 accordingly demands sums not lawfully due, and the conclusive evidence clause cannot cure that defect. [58] In my judgment, cause to the contrary within the meaning of section 256(3) of the National Land Code is established. The Originating Summons must therefore be dismissed not because the debt is disputed in its existence, nor because the Defendant's default is excused, but because the statutory demand upon which the jurisdiction to order a sale depends is founded upon an account kept in a manner the law forbids to a licensed moneylender. The Plaintiff's remedy lies in a demand lawfully constituted. ORDERS OF THE COURT [59] For the reasons given above, it is ordered that: [60] (i) the Originating Summons is dismissed; sums lawfully due and thereafter, if so advised, to file a fresh application for an order for sale; and [62] (iii) the Plaintiff shall pay the Defendant costs of Rm 30,000 to be paid forthwith, subject to allocatur. Dated : 27 July 2026 (YA Dato' Sri Raja Segaran A/L S. Krishnan) (Judicial Commisioner) High Court Of Malaya Malacca High Court (MELAKA) Lawyer For Plaintiff : Dato Manpal Singh Sachdev Tetuan Manjit Singh Sachdev Mohammad Radzi & Partners Peguambela dan Peguamcara No.1, Tingkat 11, Wisma Havela Thakardas, Jalan Tiong Nam, Off JIn Raja Laut, 50350 Kuala Lumpur. Lawyer For Defendant : Datuk Amardas a/l Jethanand Bersama Cik Corina Joon Ananda Tetuan K P Ng & Amardas Peguambela dan Peguamcara No. 43-M, Jalan Ong Kim Wee, 75300 Melaka.