PART IV – PROVISIONS RELATING TO ALL CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS
RESTITUTION OF PROPERTY
177. Property found on accused person
Where, upon the apprehension of a person charged with an offence, any property is taken from him, the court before which he is charged may order—
(a) that the property or a part thereof be restored to the person who appears to the court to be entitled thereto, and, if he be the person charged, that it be restored either to him or to such other person as he may direct ; or
(b) that the property or a part thereof be applied to the payment of any fine or any costs or compensation directed to be paid by the person charged.
178. Property stolen
(1) If a person guilty of an offence mentioned in Chapters XXVI to XXXI, both inclusive, of the Penal Code (Cap 63), in stealing, taking, obtaining, extorting, converting or disposing of, or in knowingly receiving, any property, is prosecuted to conviction by or on behalf of the owner of the property, the property shall be restored to the owner or his representative.
(2) In every case referred to in this section, the court before whom the offender is convicted may award from time to time writs of restitution for the property or order the restitution thereof in a summary manner :
Provided that—
(i) where goods as defined in the Sale of Goods Act (Cap 31) have been obtained by fraud or other wrongful means not amounting to stealing, the property in the goods shall not revest in the person who was the owner of the goods, or his personal representative, by reason only of the conviction of the offender ;
(ii) nothing in this section shall apply to the case of a valuable security which has been in good faith paid or discharged by a person liable to the payment thereof, or, being a negotiable instrument, has been taken or received in good faith by transfer or delivery by a person for a just and valuable consideration without notice or without reasonable cause to suspect that it has been stolen.
(3) On the restitution of stolen property, if it appears to the court by the evidence that the offender has sold the stolen property to a person, and that that person has had no knowledge that it was stolen, and that moneys have been taken from the offender on his apprehension, the court may, on the application of the purchaser, order that out of those moneys a sum not exceeding the amount of the proceeds of the sale be delivered to the purchaser.
(4) The operation of an order under this section shall (unless the court before which the conviction takes place directs to the contrary in any case in which the title to the property is not in dispute) be suspended—
(a) in any case, until the time for appeal has elapsed ; and
(b) in a case where an appeal is lodged, until the determination of the appeal, and in cases where the operation of any such order is suspended until the determination of the appeal, the order shall not take effect as to the property in question if the conviction is quashed on appeal.
(5) The Chief Justice may make rules for securing the safe custody of property, pending the suspension of the operation of an order made under this section.
(6) A person aggrieved by an order made under this section may appeal to the High Court, and upon the hearing of the appeal the court may by order annul or vary an order made on a trial for the restitution of property to any person, although the conviction is not quashed; and the order, if annulled, shall not take effect, and, if varied, shall take effect as so varied.
(7) In this section and in section 177, “property” includes, in the case of property regarding which the offence appears to have been committed, not only property which was originally in the possession or under the control of a person but also property into which or for which it may have been converted or
exchanged and anything acquired by the conversion or exchange whether immediately or otherwise
Enforcement of forfeiture orders
Enforcement of sentences imposed
Enforcement of national penalties - forfeiture orders
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