Thursday, January 7, 2010

The handsome rewards for serving the Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew; a disgraceful former Singapore judge G.P. Selvam (Govinda Pannirselvam)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I had previously written about the shameful career of this man G.P. Selvam who now runs the Singapore law firm Arfat Selvam Alliance LLC, having retired from the service in the Bench as a Judge whose principle duties included the awarding of astronomical judgment awards against innocent Singaporeans who had dared to criticize and challenge Lee Kuan Yew's authority.

A disgraceful judicial career indeed.

His law firm has a web site www.asalliance.com.sg, its address at 55 Market Street, #08-01, Singapore 048941.

One thing is certain. If you do Lee Kuan Yew's dirty work such as a policeman illegally jailing Lee Kuan Yew's opponents, a teacher deliberately failing a child at school because his father happened to be Lee Kuan Yew's critic, or a judge misusing the law to destroy and neutralize his opponents as in the case of this man, G.P. Selvam, Lee Kuan Yew handsomely rewards you. No doubt about it.

I had earlier in my posts mentioned how he had completely ruined Lee Kuan Yew's political opponent, Tang Liang Hong, in the Cheng San parliamentary elections of 1997 by ordering him to pay no less than several millions of dollars, yes several millions of dollars in his court, while he sat as a judge, for just saying that Lee Kuan Yew had lied when he called him a Chinese chauvinist.

In my case, he had seen it fit to suspend me from practicing law for 2 years in Singapore all because I had written to Singapore’s Attorney General Tan Boon Teik asking him to clarify himself about a matter of public interest involving the late JB Jeyaretnam. There cannot have been a more shameful abuse of judicial authority by anyone.

A dirty man who did a dirty job.

Coming to his law practice, a search on his website reveals his claims as to what he does and has done which I reproduce below:

G.P. Selvam started his legal career as an Assistant Lecturer, (1968 – 1969), Law Faculty, University of Singapore, immediately after graduating at the top of his class. He then went on to private practice from 1969 to 1991 in one of Singapore’s premier law firms and retired as a senior partner to take up a berth in the Supreme Court. He was a practice leader in Shipping, Admiralty, Banking and International Trade.

G.P. Selvam is a leading practitioner and consultant in International Arbitration Practice, Commercial Law, Shipping Insurance and Civil Litigation. He has also handled many arbitrations as arbitrator or counsel and has advised many clients on the enforcement of foreign arbitration awards in Singapore.

G.P. Selvam’s judicial career began in 1991 when he was appointed Judicial Commissioner and was subsequently appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Singapore, a post he held until 2001 when he retired upon reaching constitutional retirement age. G.P. Selvam has since returned to the practice of law.

While on the bench, G.P. Selvam presided over many matters relating to arbitration including a reported case which defined the expression: "Appeal from an Arbitration Award on a question of law" as well as a reported case on the doctrine of functus officio of an arbitral tribunal under Model Law (UNICITRAL). The latter decision was reversed by the Singapore Court of Appeal but a subsequent Act of Parliament restored the law stated and explained by G.P. Selvam. As a judge of the Supreme Court he has 117 reported cases to his name, many of them landmark cases. They cover a very wide range of civil and commercial matters.

As a member of the Supreme Court Working Party on Civil Procedure and the Rules Committee, G.P. Selvam was also a member of the team which introduced several procedural measures for clearing backlog of cases and expeditious disposal of civil cases and in particular admiralty cases.

G.P. Selvam is involved in several major arbitrations and is advisor to foreign lawyers and governments. G.P. Selvam is also the Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Civil Procedure (Singapore version of English White Book) which was published in 2003 and 2007.


If true, great legal feats indeed by someone who can send an erstwhile rich man, Tang Liang Hong, completely to the cleaners simply because he offended Lee Kuan Yew and in my case, suspending me from law practice merely because I questioned Lee Kuan Yew’s Attorney General's actions.

There is no doubt he and his family members in his law firm get a steady flow of high paying legal work through his patron and benefactor, the Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew.

His firm is mainly a Tamil law firm run by his immediate family who all profit handsomely by his erstwhile disgraceful work for his master Lee Kuan Yew. His wife, Arfat Selvam, a Tamil Muslim woman, is a director together with his daughter's husband, another Tamil, Krishna Ramachandra while his daughter Priya Pannirselvam also works there.

A look at each of their profiles in the website shows a great deal of well paying work from government listed companies and connections from third parties who are all connected to Lee Kuan Yew through his wide network.

It looks like they are all doing very well, a classic case of you scratch my dirty back and I scratch yours. I lick your boots and abuse the law for you and destroy your political opponents. In return you give me work, money and lots of it.

There is no doubting that every single lawyer in Singapore reads this blog and realizes the depths to which this man has gone to further his career. And not just that, these blogposts are distributed widely to many others who interested in the goings on of Lee Kuan Yew's and his men.

Had I said this within Singapore, even though it is true, I would have been prosecuted and treated very shabbily. No doubt about it. But from here, from California, it is quite another story.

My question is this. With these writings of mine, how does GP Selvam, his wife Arfat Selvam, his son in law Krishna Ramachandra and his daughter Priya Pannirselvam go about their business in the island with their heads visible to the onlooker?

By the way, as a window dressing, so as not to offend his ethnic Chinese master Lee Kuan Yew, there are a couple of Singaporean Chinese in junior positions in his company. But in principle a Tamil family set up, which profits from Selvam’s willingness for unimaginable dishonesty to please his master Lee Kuan Yew.

My question is this. A highly successful lawyer indeed, him and his family members in his law firm.

But tell me, which self respecting human being would want this sort of success that he and his similarly disgraceful family members have achieved.

You might as well say Adolf Eichmann had a highly successful career too, in eliminating Hitler’s opposition, until of course 1961 when he hung in Tel Aviv gallows.

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some people have no shame. No shame at all.

When their benefactor dies let's see where they end up.

iloveopposinghim said...

I agree with your sayings. As a Chinese, i feel that it is wrong to only protect the government's face. I thought we were taught to become honest people? Shame on some people who can't accept some facts. Based on the actual eyes of the law, most of the cases you mentioned are not defamatory. We might as well call it the PAP-Law, not Singapore Law.

Anonymous said...

If you, GN, were asked to write LKY's obituary, what would you say.

Invite the readers of your blog to submit theirs and publish the best ones.

Let the 'great' man read about what people think about him.

Anonymous said...

Let's call Singapore by the its proper name - NPOC.

The New Province of China.