Section 30

This section shall have effect for the protection of owners of articles pawned and of pawners not having their pawn tickets to produce.

Any person claiming to be the owner of a pledge but not holding the pawn ticket, or any person claiming to be entitled to hold a pawn ticket but alleging that the pawn ticket has been lost, mislaid, destroyed or stolen or fraudulently obtained from him, may apply to the pawnbroker for a printed form of declaration, which the pawnbroker shall deliver to him upon receipt of the charge specified in the Second Schedule.

The printed form of declaration referred to in subsection (2) shall contain sufficient particulars of the pawn, including a description of the pledge, the date it was pawned, the pledge number or the lost pawn ticket number so as to enable the pawner to make a declaration before a person authorised to administer oaths or a notary public.

If the applicant delivers back to the pawnbroker the declaration duly made before a person authorised to administer oaths or a notary public by the applicant, the applicant shall thereupon have as between him and the pawnbroker all the same rights and remedies as if he produced the pawn ticket:Provided that such a declaration shall not be effectual for that purpose unless it is duly made and delivered back to the pawnbroker not later than on the third day after the day on which the form is delivered to the applicant by the pawnbroker.

The pawnbroker is hereby indemnified for not delivering the pledge to any person until the expiration of the period aforesaid.

The pawnbroker is hereby further indemnified for delivering the pledge or otherwise acting in conformity with the declaration, unless he has actual or constructive notice that the declaration is fraudulent or is false in any material particular.

Declarations under this section may be in Form 1 or 2 set out in the First Schedule, as the nature of the case requires.

Every declaration under this section shall be deemed to be a declaration within the meaning of sections 199 and 200 of the Penal Code [Cap. 224].

The Minister may, by order published in the Gazette, amend, add to or revoke the whole or any part of the First Schedule.[28