A (2 + 1 )-dimensional theory of charged scalar particles coupled to an abehan gauge field with Chern-Slmons term In the action is canonically quantlzed in the Coulomb and superaxlal gauges The gauge transformatmn linking these two gauges is shown to be singular Then, the superaxial gauge excitations are found to obey fractional statistics We demonstrate that th~s effect does not arise when the conventional term -~FU~Fu~ is present m the actmn