14 In the event, Mr Chan decided on a third option – which was to proceed with the present application pursuant to r 13(4), leaving argument with regard to the other grounds for another occasion, if necessary. However, he did point out that it was incumbent on him to raise these other grounds in the present proceedings, if for no other reason than to emphasise that the defendant was not, in any way, waiving its rights to raising these grounds in a separate application in the future. 15 I turn now, briefly, to the second reason why it would have been unfair to have allowed the defendant to rely on the other arguments without more. As the present application was made pursuant to r 13(4), it was not surprising that both the plaintiff as well as Mr Ravi expressed surprise on viewing the arguments in the defendant’s skeletal submissions. In the circumstances, they were obviously unprepared to meet these other arguments. One natural solution would have been to have granted them additional time for preparation, provided the potential procedural difficulties could be ironed out. As it turned out (see the preceding paragraph), this course of action is now unnecessary. Suffice it to state that after some discussion, we were back where the original application in fact indicated we should be – focusing on the sole issue centring on the effect of the plaintiff’s noncompliance with r 13. 16 I turn now to the respective arguments for the parties in so far as this particular issue is concerned, commencing with the arguments by counsel for the defendant. The defendant’s arguments Introduction 17 Mr Chan presented a number of arguments on behalf of the defendant, who was of course the applicant in the present proceedings. These arguments fell, in my view, within two broad categories, which I shall adopt for ease of analysis. The first may be classified as “Precedent” – in other words, the case law that (in Mr Chan’s view) supported the defendant’s application. 18 The second broad category may, in my view, be classified under the rubric of “General principle”. The arguments within this category, whilst constituting substantive arguments in their own right, can also be considered simultaneously as constituting the underlying rationale or spirit behind the case for the defendant itself. In this regard, I hasten to point out that many of the arguments in this particular category overlap with and indeed constitute the underlying rationale or spirit behind many of the decisions considered in the first category. So there ought to be no rigid dichotomy as such. The categories I adopt are, as I have mentioned, primarily for the purposes of convenience as well as efficiency of analysis more than anything else. 19 Mr Chan pointed out, at a very preliminary stage of his arguments, that as the plaintiff’s application was, inter alia, for a declaration to declare the results of an election as being null and void, it could only have been brought under s 90 of the Act. In the circumstances, therefore, if the defendant���s present application was successful, and r 13 was found to be a mandatory requirement for a s 90 application, the plaintiff’s application in Originating Summons No 1017 of 2006 would fail in its entirety. Mr Ravi did not, correctly in my view, disagree with this interpretation. 20 More importantly, Mr Chan also pointed out that the role of an Election Judge was rather more limited than that of a judge exercising his jurisdiction to adjudicate civil disputes. He referred, in particular, to the Malaysian High Court decision of Dr Shafie bin Abu Bakar v Pegawai Pengurus Pilihan Raya N 26 Bangi (No 2) [2005] 2 MLJ 149 (“the Dr Shafie case”), where VT Singham J observed thus (at [23]):