Law Society of Singapore v Ravi s/o Madasamy
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | Sundaresh Menon CJ |
Judgment Date | 21 March 2023 |
Neutral Citation | [2023] SGHC 65 |
Hearing Date | 09 November 2022 |
Docket Number | Originating Summons No 2 of 2022 |
Citation | [2023] SGHC 65 |
Year | 2023 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Lin Weiqi Wendy and Teo Guo Zheng, Titus (WongPartnership LLP) |
Defendant Counsel | The respondent in person. |
Published date | 28 March 2023 |
C3J/OS 2/2022 (“OS 2”) is an application by the Law Society of Singapore (the “Law Society”) for the respondent, Mr Ravi s/o Madasamy (“Mr Ravi”), to be sanctioned under s 83(1) of the Legal Profession Act 1966 (2020 Rev Ed) (the “LPA”). The misconduct that is in issue before us arose out of comments which Mr Ravi made when he was interviewed by The Online Citizen Asia (“TOC Asia”) and other comments he subsequently posted on Facebook following the release of the Court of Appeal’s oral grounds in
Following a complaint made by the DAG in respect of Mr Ravi’s various comments, a disciplinary tribunal (the “DT”) was convened to investigate four primary and three alternative charges which were preferred against Mr Ravi under s 83(2) of the LPA. The DT found that three of the four primary charges against Mr Ravi were made out, but found that no cause of sufficient gravity for disciplinary action arose. It ordered Mr Ravi to pay a total penalty of $6,000 in respect of those charges.
Dissatisfied, the Law Society filed OS 2 on 20 January 2022 pursuant to s 94(3)(
We begin by setting out the backdrop against which Mr Ravi’s misconduct arose, starting with the criminal proceedings and various related events that culminated in
On 11 December 2014, one Gobi a/l Avedian (“Gobi”) was arrested on suspicion of having in his possession two packets of granular substance containing a prohibited drug. In HC/CC 13/2017 (“CC 13”), which commenced on 31 January 2017, Gobi was charged under s 7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) (“MDA”), punishable by death under s 33(1) read with the Second Schedule of the MDA, for importing the two packets of granular substance found to contain not less than 40.22g of diamorphine, a controlled drug under Class A of the First Schedule to the MDA (the “Drugs”). Gobi’s defence counsel at the time was Mr Shashi Nathan.
At trial, the sole issue before the High Court was whether Gobi had rebutted the presumption of knowledge under s 18(2) of the MDA (the “s 18(2) MDA presumption”). Section 18(2) of the MDA states:
Presumption of possession and knowledge of controlled drugs
At first instance, Gobi’s case was that he thought the Drugs were a form of mild controlled drug mixed with chocolate, and thus that he did
The Prosecution appealed against Gobi’s acquittal on the capital charge in CA/CCA 20/2017 (“CCA 20”). The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and held that Gobi had failed to rebut the presumption of knowledge under s 18(2) of the MDA. On 25 October 2018, it set aside Gobi’s conviction on the amended charge and convicted Gobi of the original capital charge: see
Mr Ravi began acting for Gobi in September 2019. On 3 January 2020, he filed on behalf of Gobi an application for leave to commence criminal review proceedings against the Court of Appeal’s decision in
This application was premised on a separate decision of the Court of Appeal in
shall, until the contrary is proved, be presumed to have had that drug in his possession.
The Prosecution’s case, however, was that the accused had been wilfully blind to the existence of the drugs in question. The Court of Appeal held that the Prosecution could not invoke the s 18(1) MDA presumption in relation to wilful blindness because the s 18(1) presumption was a presumption of
Separately, Mr Ravi on 28 January 2020 filed HC/OS 111/2020 (“OS 111”) on behalf of Gobi and one Datchinamurthy a/l Kataiah (“Datchinamurthy”). Datchinamurthy too had been sentenced to the mandatory death sentence after being convicted of trafficking in a quantity of drugs exceeding the threshold for the imposition of capital punishment: see
On 4 February 2020, a pre-trial conference was convened at the request of Mr Wong Woon Kwong of the AGC (“Mr Wong”). Mr Wong sought urgent hearing dates on account of the gravity of the allegations contained in OS 111. In particular, Mr Wong added that he was “... instructed to state that we are expressly reserving all our rights against Mr Ravi” (the “Reservation Statement”). Mr Ravi sought to clarify the meaning of the Reservation Statement during the hearing, but was directed by the Assistant Registrar to seek clarifications from the AGC thereafter.
On 10 February 2020, Mr Ravi filed HC/OS 181/2020 (“OS 181”) on behalf of Gobi and Datchinamurthy, seeking a declaration that the Reservation Statement constituted a breach of their right to a fair hearing. OS 111 and OS 181 were heard together on 13 February 2020 and dismissed.
Gobi (Review) Returning to Gobi’s review application, CM 3 was heard by a five-Judge panel of the Court of Appeal on 19 October 2020. Brief grounds of the Court of Appeal’s judgment were delivered on the same day (the “Brief Grounds”), setting out its reasons for setting aside Gobi’s conviction on the capital charge and reinstating Gobi’s conviction on the amended charge imposed in
Although we had, in
Adili , expressly confined the aforesaid holdings to the s 18(1) presumption of possession, on the face of it, they seem likely to also apply to the s 18(2) presumption of knowledge. In this light,we reviewed the record and observed what seemed to us to be an inconsistency between the Prosecution’s case at the trial and its case on appeal in respect of the state of the Applicant’s knowledge of the nature of the Drugs .[emphasis added]
The Court of Appeal then found that the Prosecution’s case had
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