XTQ v XTR

District Judge Chia Wee Kiat:

[1] The Plaintiff shall be referred to as the “Wife” and the Defendant shall be referred to as the “Husband”.

[2] The parties were both Indian nationals by birth. They were married on 25 January 2004 in Mumbai, India. There are no children to the marriage. At the time of the marriage, the Wife was working in Singapore, and the Husband was working in Malaysia.

[3] In 2005, the Husband moved to Singapore to join the Wife. In 2008, both parties obtained Singapore citizenship and renounced their Indian citizenship.

[4] In 2009, the parties purchased the matrimonial home located at the Pinnacle@Duxton. They resided there as husband and wife from 2009 till May 2014, when the Husband relocated to Japan for work. The Wife joined the Husband initially but subsequently returned to Singapore on her own.

[5] In March 2019, the parties sold the matrimonial home and the Wife bought a property located at the Central View in her sole name. The Husband remained in Japan till December 2022 when he informed the Wife that his employer had posted him to the United States of America (“USA”) and that he would be relocating there. Since then, he had been working and living in the USA.

[6] On 5 August 2023, the Husband filed a divorce petition in Mumbai. The Husband said that he chose to commence divorce proceedings in Mumbai because Mumbai would be the most appropriate court to determine the parties’ matrimonial matters. Mumbai was where they had registered their marriage and maintained ties to. The parties also both had Overseas Citizen of Indian status which allowed them to live and work in India without restrictions.

[7] On 29 April 2024, the Wife filed for judicial separation vide FC/D 1949/2024 (“D 1949”) on the Husband’s unreasonable behaviour. According to the Wife, she was not aware of the Indian divorce when she commenced D 1949.

[8] On 9 July 2024, the Husband filed FC/SUM 2145/2024 to stay D 1949 on the ground of forum non conveniens. In his supporting affidavit, the Husband said that he moved to the USA after staying in Japan for almost a decade. He had been residing in the USA and would return to India whenever possible. Eventually, he hoped to find a job that would allow him to settle down in Mumbai permanently.

[9] The Husband said that he did not own any property in Singapore apart from his bank account. On the other hand, both parties owned bank accounts in India. He was of the view that the Wife’s property in Singapore in her sole name might be sufficiently dealt with in the Indian divorce proceedings. The dissolution of the marriage ought to remain the priority, with spousal maintenance and division being ancillary to such dissolution.

[10] The Wife objected to the stay application. She disagreed that the Husband intended to live in Mumbai in the long term. She pointed out that the Husband continued to be a Singapore citizen and had not renounced his Singapore citizenship. He had never purchased a property in India in the course of the 20-year marriage and had instead purchased properties elsewhere. The Husband continued to own bank accounts in Singapore and had substantial monies standing to his CPF accounts. The Husband never worked in India, nor applied for jobs in India. The Wife contended that the Indian courts rely on the concept of domicile in determining jurisdiction , and the Husband’s domicile of choice was the USA or Singapore but not India.

[12] Consequently, I directed that the Defence be filed and served within 14 days, i.e. by 14 December 2024. I indicated that in the event of an appeal, full written grounds would be rendered.

[13] The Husband did not appeal the decision and filed his Defence on 2 December 2024. The trial took place before District Judge Eugene Tay (“the DJ”) on 14 May 2025. On 28 August 2025, the DJ granted a judgment of judicial separation. The DJ found that the Husband had behaved in such a way that the Wife could not reasonably be expected to continue living with him: see XTQ v XTR [2025] SGFC 116 (at [50]).

[14] On 11 September 2025, the Husband filed a Notice of Appeal vide HCF/DCA 108/2025 against the whole of the DJ’s decision. The appeal was heard and dismissed in its entirety by Mavis Chionh J: see XTR v XTQ [2026] SGHCF 11 (at [124]).

[15] Following the dismissal of the Husband’s appeal, directions were given at a case conference for parties to file and exchange their Affidavit of Assets and Means (“AOM”) by 29 May 2026. The Husband did not file his AOM but instead filed a second stay application vide FC/SUM 1435/2026 (“SUM 1435”) on 5 June 2026.

[16] In SUM 1435, the Husband applied for the following orders:

[17] The Wife objected to the Husband’s application.

[19] As the Husband has appealed the decision vide HCF/RAS 20/2026, I now provide my full grounds of decision.

[20] The Husband acknowledged that his first stay application was dismissed and he did not challenge it. However, he said that there had since been material developments in the Indian divorce. The parties attended marriage counselling arranged by the Indian court on 22 October 2024, 30 January 2025 and 3 May 2025. On 30 January 2025, the Wife filed an “Application for Production of Document of the Petitioner” seeking disclosure of an extensive list of financial documents. On 2 August 2025, the Wife filed her “Affidavit of Assets and Liabilities”, “Application for Interim Maintenance” and her “Written Statement”. On 17 December 2025, parties attended a hearing in Mumbai together with their lawyers, and the Wife re-stated her claim for maintenance, both interim and “permanent”. A hearing to determine the Wife’s claims for financial relief was initially fixed on 6 June 2026, but this was adjourned to 25 August 2026 as the Judge took emergency leave.

[21] The Husband contended that one of the reasons raised by the Wife in resisting the first stay application was that the Indian divorce did not include prayers on financial reliefs. However, that was no longer the case as the Wife had altered the complexion of the Indian divorce by actively participating and filing applications for financial reliefs in India.

[22] On the basis that the Wife was seeking substantive financial reliefs in both Singapore and India, and that the Indian divorce was at a more advanced stage, the Husband believed that it would be prejudicial to him if the Wife was allowed to continue pursuing her claims in D 1949. As the Wife had submitted to the jurisdiction of the Indian court, she should not be allowed to claim ancillary reliefs in Singapore.

[23] The Wife asserted that she was not seeking duplicative reliefs. Her application in India was confined to interim maintenance pending the determination of the Husband’s divorce petition. This was temporary in nature, designed only to preserve her financial position during the pendency of those proceedings. It did not involve, nor was it capable of constituting a final determination of the parties’ proprietary or financial rights arising from the marriage.

[24] The Wife contended that the Indian court’s power to order permanent alimony could only arise after a decree of divorce had been granted. Moreover India had no legislation providing for the division of matrimonial assets.

[25] The Wife said that the Indian court had not heard the dissolution of the parties’ marriage after almost three years. While documents had been filed by both parties in the Indian proceedings, no decree of divorce had been granted, no ancillary proceedings had been commenced, and no final determination had been made in relation to any financial issues between the parties.

[26] The Wife also pointed out that there was nothing to prevent the Husband from commencing divorce proceedings in Singapore if dissolution of the marriage was the relief he was seeking. The Husband is a Singapore citizen and had demonstrated the ability to retain Singapore solicitors and participate effectively in these proceedings.

[27] If the Husband’s second stay application was granted at this stage, the inevitable consequence would be that the Singapore proceedings in D 1949 would be halted midway through the ancillary process, while the parties continue to litigate the Husband’s divorce petition in India. This would result in a fragmentation of the proceedings.

[28] The Wife pointed out that the Husband had elected to continue with the divorce proceedings in India despite having failed in his first stay application. She contended that he should not be allowed to rely upon a state of affairs substantially brought about by his own conduct to justify reopening an issue that had already been determined against him.

[29] The Husband could not avoid the operation of issue estoppel simply by advancing a different factual narrative. Unless the Husband could demonstrate a material change in circumstances affecting the issue previously decided, the issue could not be reopened. The matter was res judicata.

[30] The concept of res judicata was explained by the Court of Appeal (“CA”) in The Royal Bank of Scotland NV v TT International Ltd [2015] 5 SLR 1104 (at [98]) as follows:

[31] The CA emphasised (at [103]) that it is important, at the outset, to identify which of the three distinct principles of res judicata is engaged, as the applicable requirements differ. In the present case, the Wife relied specifically on issue estoppel. The question I had to determine was therefore whether the requirements of issue estoppel were satisfied.

[32] In Goh Nellie v Goh Lian Teck [2007] 1 SLR (R) 453 (“Goh Nellie”), the High Court, citing Lee Tat Development Pte Ltd v MCST Plan No 301 [2005] 3 SLR(R) 157, held (at [26]) that the following requirements had to be met to establish an issue estoppel:

(a) there must be a final and conclusive judgment on the merits;

(b) that judgment must be of a court of competent jurisdiction;

(c) there must be identity between the parties to the two actions that are being compared; and

(d) there must be an identity of subject matter in the two proceedings.

[33] With regard to the last requirement, the court explained (at [34]) as follows:

[34] The Husband did not dispute that the first three requirements were satisfied. However, the Husband submitted that there was no identity of subject matter and hence the fourth requirement was not satisfied.

[35] The Husband contended that the analysis had shifted from the breakdown of the marriage and the status of the parties to the financial reliefs that were being sought by the parties. Additionally, the facts in the second stay application were different from those in the first stay application in that the Wife was now residing in India, had started to seek reliefs in India and the process in India had actually moved on much further than in Singapore.

[36] As explained in my brief grounds, the Husband’s first stay application was not confined to the breakdown of the marriage and status of the parties. In his affidavit dated 9 July 2024 in support that application, the Husband had deposed at [24] as follows:

[37] Clearly, the issue of the appropriate forum to hear the ancillary matters was specifically raised and argued by the Husband in the first application. The earlier decision, which determined that the Singapore proceedings should not be stayed in favor of India, encompassed the ancillary matters. The prior decision traversed substantially the same ground as the second stay application in that both concerned whether the ancillary matters proceedings in Singapore should be stayed.

[38] The Husband’s other contention with respect to new facts that occurred after the dismissal of the first stay application brought into focus how the sub-requirement, i.e. that “the facts and circumstances giving rise to the earlier decision must not have changed or should be incapable of change” was to be understood in the particular context of a second application for a stay on the ground of forum non conveniens. This appeared to be a relatively novel issue, as neither party had cited any authority dealing directly with such a scenario.

[39] In the absence of direct authority, I was of the view that a commonsensical approach should be adopted, balancing the competing interests of finality in litigation against the need to ensure that a party was not unfairly precluded from relying on a genuine and material change in circumstances that fundamentally altered the basis upon which the earlier decision was made.

[40] This approach accorded with the emphasis in Goh Nellie on a commonsensical assessment balancing finality against the need not to foreclose a litigant from arguing an issue, in the context of the second requirement for issue estoppel. The court noted (at [37]) as follows:

[41] In that case, the court also adopted the same balancing approach in the context of determining whether the ambient circumstances of the case gave rise to an abuse of process. The court noted (at [53]) as follows:

[42] In my view, the balance could not be struck merely by asking whether there had been any change in circumstance since the earlier stay application. In the context of forum non conveniens, circumstances may inevitably evolve with the passage of time. There would be no meaningful finality to a determination on forum non conveniens if every subsequent development bearing upon connecting factors could be relied upon to mount a fresh stay application. The doctrine of finality would be substantially undermined if a litigant could revive an unsuccessful stay application whenever the factual balance between the two jurisdictions shifts. The change must therefore be one of sufficient significance to alter materially the basis upon which the forum question was previously determined. The threshold for reopening a stay application that had already been determined must necessarily be a high one.

[43] As stated in my brief grounds, I was not satisfied that the change in the facts and circumstances put forth by the Husband was of sufficient significance and materiality to revisit the stay application. In my judgment, the second stay application by the Husband was barred by issue estoppel.

[44] I now provide a more detailed analysis.

[45] In the Husband’s first stay application, I found that he had failed to discharge the burden of proving that India was an available forum. I noted that the Husband did not file any expert affidavit to show that India was a competent jurisdiction to hear the Wife’s application for judicial separation or that the Wife was entitled to institute proceedings for judicial separation as of right in India. I noted further that there was a failure on the part of the Husband’s lawyers in India to set out the law and the reasoning process when they expressed their belief that the domicile requirement in the ongoing divorce proceedings in India had been sufficiently addressed by the court in India. Hence, even if the correspondence from his lawyers in India had been admitted, I would have accorded little weight to the expert opinion.

[46] In this second application, the Husband asserted that there had been a material development since the first stay decision as the Wife had submitted to the jurisdiction of the Indian court by participating actively in the Indian divorce proceedings. Presumably, this meant that the jurisdiction of the Indian court to hear the husband’s divorce petition was no longer an issue. However, no expert affidavit on the relevant Indian law was filed to address whether a party’s submission to the jurisdiction of the Indian court could confer jurisdiction on that court.

[47] In the absence of any expert evidence, the presumption of similarity applies. Under this legal principle, it is presumed that the foreign law is the same as Singapore law: Third Eye Capital Corp v Pretty View Shipping SA and others [2024] SGHC 96 (at [96]).

[48] As noted in COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers Co, Ltd v PT OKI Pulp & Paper Mills [2024] SGHC 273 (at [13]):

[49] In Singapore, the jurisdiction requirements for the commencement of divorce proceedings are prescribed by s 93 of the Women’s Charter 1961. Where neither party is domiciled in Singapore nor habitually resident in Singapore for the requisite period, the statutory jurisdictional threshold is not satisfied.

[50] Parties cannot by agreement, submission or acquiescence, confer upon the court a jurisdiction which it does not otherwise possess. This is clear from UDA v UDB [2018] 3 SLR 1433 where Debbie Ong JC (as she then was) made the following observations (at [29]):

[emphasis in bold added]

[51] Hence, the fact that the Wife had purportedly submitted to the jurisdiction of the Indian court was not a significant and material change. This development did not affect the earlier determination that the Husband had failed to discharge the burden of showing that India was an available forum.

[52] The Husband further submitted that since judicial separation had already been granted in Singapore, the only matters remaining for determination were the ancillary matters , and that the Indian court was an available forum.

[53] However, the Husband could not simply establish that India was an available forum for the ancillary matters by treating those matters as severable from the divorce which gave rise to them. To succeed in such an argument, it was incumbent on the Husband to provide expert evidence to establish that the Indian court could determine the ancillary matters independently of the Indian court’s jurisdiction over the divorce itself. He did not do so.

[54] In the absence of any expert evidence, it is presumed that the relevant Indian law is the same as Singapore law. Under Singapore law, ancillary matters are not standalone proceedings divorced from the underlying matrimonial proceedings. They are consequential upon and flow from the divorce.

[55] Applying Singapore law, the burden remained on the Husband to demonstrate that the Indian courts had the requisite jurisdiction to entertain the divorce. He failed to discharge that burden in his first stay application and, despite the opportunity afforded by this second application, failed to do so once again.

[56] With regard to the Husband’s claim that the Wife had “not even been living in Singapore anymore”, the Wife explained that she had made several trips to India, primarily to visit her aged parents, in particular her mother, who had been suffering from medical conditions and required her assistance with her recovery from various medical procedures. The Wife said that she was also planning future trips to be there to assist her mother as she recovered from shingles, as well as to help her family handle a situation surrounding the development of their home, which would render them homeless should they be unable to secure alternative housing.

[57] The Wife said that these visits were motivated by filial duty and compassion, not by any intention to re-establish residence in India. Her trips to India had been temporary and purpose-specific and did not reflect any intention to abandon her home in Singapore. She had no intention of selling her property at the Central View and Singapore remained her home.

[58] In my judgment, the Husband’s assertion that the Wife had ceased residing in Singapore was not borne out by the evidence. The mere fact that the Wife was physically present in India was not sufficient to establish that she had taken up residence there, especially in the face of other objective evidence pointing to the Wife’s continued residence in Singapore.

[59] As the Husband had not proved that the Wife had changed her residence to India, it was unnecessary to consider the further question of whether the alleged change constituted a significant and material change.

[60] I was also unable to accept the Husband’s assertion that the Indian divorce proceedings had progressed further than the Singapore proceedings. That assertion was not borne out by the evidence. In Singapore, judgment of judicial separation had already been granted and the appeal against that judgment had been dismissed. The parties had progressed to the ancillary matters stage. These proceedings had not advanced further only because they had been halted by the Husband’s second application for a stay.

[61] In contrast, the divorce petition in India had not even been heard, much less determined. Viewed objectively, therefore, the procedural history did not support the Husband’s contention that the Indian proceedings were at a more advanced stage than the Singapore proceedings.

[62] In any event, the mere advancement of the Indian divorce proceedings could not constitute a change of sufficient significance to reopen the issue. If such ordinary development were sufficient to justify reconsideration of a stay application which had already been determined, there would be no meaningful point at which the determination of the appropriate forum could be regarded as final. That would undermine the finality which the doctrine of issue estoppel was intended to secure.

[63] As I found that none of the developments relied upon by the Husband warranted the forum issue being reopened and determined afresh, issue estoppel applied and the Husband was barred from reopening and relitigating the forum issue in the present application.

[64] In any event, even if the forum issue were open to determination afresh, I would have reached the same conclusion and dismissed the application. This was because the Husband still had not discharged the burden of showing that India was an available forum with jurisdiction to determine the parties’ divorce and consequently, the ancillary matters arising from it. This, as noted in TGT v TGU [2015] SGHC 10 (at [21]), would foreclose the Spiliada inquiry altogether.

[65] Further, even assuming that India was an available forum, the Husband had not shown that India was clearly or distinctly the more appropriate forum for the determination of the ancillary matters. I elaborate below.

[66] The Husband submitted that lis alibi pendens was an important factor in stay applications under the forum non conveniens doctrine, particularly because it concerned duplication of resources and conflicting judgments. The Husband asserted that while India had no provision for division of assets, the Wife could still have a claim to the Husband’s assets through a claim for alimony.

[67] The concept of lis alibi pendens was considered in XLV v XLW [2025] SGHCF 35 where Teh Hwee Hwee J held (at [54]) as follows:

[68] An example where there was no overlap of issues may be seen in the case of BDA v BDB [2013] 1 SLR 607 where the court observed (at [30]) as follows:

[69] In the present case, the Husband did not provide any expert evidence to show that the difference between the ancillary reliefs in the Singapore proceedings and the Indian proceedings was a “technical difference in the names of the reliefs available”. There was no reasonable excuse for this omission, as he ought to have been aware of the need to adduce expert evidence to establish the relevant principles of foreign law.

[70] Further, the Husband had not shown that the Indian proceedings were at a more advanced stage than the Singapore proceedings. In fact, the Singapore proceedings were considerably more advanced.

[71] In the circumstances, I did not find this factor to favour a stay.

[72] The Husband also relied on the Wife’s purported submission to the jurisdiction of the Indian court. The Husband submitted that Wife could have proceeded only in Singapore, but she deliberately chose to seek relief in India.

[73] As will be recalled, this argument was earlier discussed in the context of whether India was an available forum. The issue now was whether the Wife’s participation in the Indian proceedings was a connecting factor pointing to India as the more appropriate forum.

[74] I did not consider the Wife’s participation in the Indian divorce proceedings to be a factor weighing in favour of a stay. It should be noted that the Husband’s first stay application was dismissed. Notwithstanding that determination, he chose to continue pursuing the divorce proceedings in India when he could have pursued the divorce in Singapore. The Wife was naturally placed in a position where she had to take such steps as were reasonably necessary to protect her interests in those proceedings, including seeking financial reliefs there. Her participation in the Indian proceedings must be viewed in that context.

[75] More fundamentally, the Husband could not rely on a state of affairs brought about by his own decision to continue the Indian proceedings after his stay application had failed as a basis for contending that the balance had now shifted in favour of India. To permit this would mean that a party could, by continuing parallel foreign proceedings notwithstanding the refusal of a stay, progressively create the very circumstances which he later relies on to justify a renewed stay application.

[76] Furthermore, the Husband himself had participated in the Singapore proceedings. He took part in the judicial separation trial and, following the decision against him, pursued an appeal. Hence, by the same token, if the Wife’s participation in the Indian proceedings was said to constitute submission to the jurisdiction of the Indian court, the Husband’s participation in the Singapore proceedings could be characterised in the same way.

[77] In fact, rule 325 of the Family Justice Rules 2014 (“FJR 2014”), which applies to the present proceedings, provides as follows:

[78] The Husband entered a Memorandum of Appearance on 25 June 2024 and did not make an application under r 325(1) of the FJR 2014. Pursuant to r 325(6), the appearance was treated as a submission by the Husband to the jurisdiction of the Family Court in the proceedings. Hence, the Wife’s purported submission to the jurisdiction of the Indian court did not favour a stay. It was at best a neutral factor given that the Husband had also submitted to the jurisdiction of the Singapore court.

[79] The Husband submitted that the parties had stronger connection to India.

[80] First, the Husband submitted that neither party was a resident of Singapore.

[81] I accepted that the parties’ residence is a relevant connecting factor. In AZS v AZR [2013] SGHC 102 (“AZS v AZR”), Andrew Ang J noted (at [15]) as follows:

[82] In the present case, the Husband’s assertion that neither party was a resident of Singapore was not borne out by the evidence. As observed earlier, the evidence did not show that the Wife had ceased to reside in Singapore.

[83] In contrast, the facts showed clearly that neither party was resident in India. The Husband admitted that he had stayed in Japan for almost a decade before he moved to the USA where he had been residing to-date.

[84] The parties’ residence plainly did not favour India as the more appropriate forum. If anything, this connecting factor pointed towards Singapore, where the Wife, a Singapore citizen, continued to reside.

[85] The Husband also relied on the fact that the Wife maintained three ICIC bank accounts in India, while he maintained one account with the bank. However, the mere existence of these bank accounts did not establish any meaningful connection with India bearing in mind that parties had other assets that were not located in India.

[86] In this regard, the following observations in AZS v AZR (at [21]) are relevant:

[87] In the present case, the parties did not have any immovable assets in India. In contrast, the Central View property in the Wife’s sole name was located in Singapore. This consideration weighed against a stay.

[88] Furthermore, parties also had substantial CPF savings which were held in Singapore and governed by Singapore law. Any order made by a foreign court would not bind the CPF Board. In contrast, the Singapore courts have the statutory power to make orders for the division and transfer of CPF monies that are capable of direct implementation by the CPF Board. Hence, the practical effectiveness and enforceability of any order concerning the CPF savings also favoured Singapore as the more appropriate forum.

[89] The Husband further submitted that the Wife should be put to elect a forum. He contended that the Wife’s conduct was an inherent abuse of two judicial systems and stood to gain from two sets of financial orders made against him.

[90] The doctrine of foreign election is conceptually distinct from the doctrine of forum non conveniens. In Virsagi Management (S) Pte Ltd v Welltech Construction Pte Ltd [2013] 3 SLR 1097, the CA explained the doctrine of forum election (at [30]) as follows:

[91] The CA explained further (at [32] and [33]) as follows:

[92] The application before me was expressly premised on forum non conveniens. The Husband had not made any separate application for an order requiring the Wife to elect between Singapore and Indian proceedings. It was procedurally inappropriate to introduce the issue of forum election in the course of an application founded on forum non conveniens. If the Husband wished to invoke the doctrine of forum election and seek relief on that basis, he ought to have done so through a properly constituted application. To permit the Husband to raise forum election in this manner would not only circumvent the procedural requirement, but it would also obfuscate the real issues for determination. In the circumstances, I did not consider it necessary or appropriate to determine whether the Wife should be required to elect between the two sets of proceedings.

[93] In any event, the present case did not involve the Wife independently commencing proceedings in two jurisdictions in an attempt to pursue the same claim in both jurisdictions. The Husband was the one who commenced the divorce proceedings in India and continued to pursue them notwithstanding the dismissal of his first stay application in Singapore. The Wife’s subsequent application for financial relief in the Indian proceedings was made in circumstances where she had to protect her interests in proceedings which the Husband had chosen to pursue. Her participation in those proceedings could not be equated with the voluntary commencement of duplicative proceedings of the kind contemplated by the doctrine of forum election.

[94] It is also important to bear in mind the practical effect of an election. As the CA observed (at [35]-[37):

[95] Hence, even if the Wife were required to elect between the two sets of proceedings, that would not resolve the question of forum non conveniens. An order requiring the Wife to elect would not establish that India was the more appropriate forum, nor would it result in a stay of the Singapore proceedings. The Husband would still have to discharge his burden of satisfying the requirements for a stay on the ground of forum non conveniens.

[96] In conclusion, I found that the Husband was precluded by issue estoppel from relitigating the question of whether the Singapore proceedings should be stayed in favour of India. Even if I were to consider the application afresh, I would have arrived at the same conclusion. Firstly, the Husband had failed to discharge his burden of establishing that India was an available forum for the determination of the divorce and the ancillary matters. Secondly, even assuming that India was an available forum, the connecting factors did not establish that India was clearly or distinctly the more appropriate forum. On the contrary, several of the relevant connecting factors pointed towards Singapore.

[97] Finally, the Husband’s attempt to introduce the issue of forum election into the present stay application served only to obfuscate the central issue before me. The stay application was founded on the doctrine of forum non conveniens, which required the Husband to establish that India was an available forum and, further, that it was clearly or distinctly the more appropriate forum for the determination of the ancillary matters. The question of whether the Wife should be required to elect between the proceedings in Singapore and India was a separate and distinct issue, governed by different legal principles. Even if the Wife were required to make such an election, that would not establish that India was the more appropriate forum or justify a stay of the Singapore proceedings. The Husband could not circumvent his burden under the doctrine of forum non conveniens by introducing the separate issue of forum election. To conflate these two distinct doctrines would only obscure, rather than illuminate the question that I was required to determine.

[98] For the above reasons, I dismissed the Husband’s application for a stay of the ancillary proceedings.

[99] Following the dismissal of the application, the Husband requested that the case conference for the ancillary matters be deferred in view of his intention to consider an appeal against my decision. I declined his request. This was already the Husband’s second application to stay the proceedings, the first having been dismissed. The resolution of the ancillary matters had been delayed by these successive applications and ought now to proceed towards resolution without further unnecessary delay. The prospect of a further appeal should not be allowed to result in what would effectively be a third stay of the ancillary proceedings.

Ms Sheryl Keith Nuqui Sandhu and Ms Wu Yuqi (Gloria James-Civetta & Co) for the plaintiff;

for the defendant.