page_title: Choor Singh
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Choor Singh / Later years
caption_attribution_description: English: The Gurdwara Khalsa Dharmak Sabha, a Sikh temple, at 18 Niven Road, Singapore 228365.
context_page_description: Choor Singh Sidhu, known professionally as Choor Singh, was a judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore and, particularly after his retirement from the bench, a philanthropist and writer of books about Sikhism. Born to a family of modest means in Punjab, India, he came to Singapore at four years of age. He completed his secondary education in the top class at Raffles Institution in 1929, then worked as a clerk in a law firm before becoming a civil servant in the Official Assignee's office.
  Encouraged by the Assistant Official Assignee, James Walter Davy Ambrose, to study law, Choor Singh enrolled as an external student at the University of London, passing the matriculation examination and intermediate LL.B. examination. In 1948 he was appointed a coroner, and the following year was elevated to the post of magistrate, becoming the first Indian to hold such a position in colonial Malaya. Following law studies at Gray's Inn on a government scholarship, he became a Barrister-at-Law in 1955. He was appointed a district judge in 1960 and a judge of the Supreme Court in 1963.
context_section_description: Impatient with nothing to do following his retirement, for about four and a half years from 1981 Choor Singh acted as a personal consultant for Tan Chin Tuan, the Chairman of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), and other companies in the OCBC group such as Great Eastern Life and Overseas Assurance Corporation. For many years, Singh was chairman of both the Probation Committee which supervises the work of probation officers, and the Detention Board, and vice-president of the National Kidney Foundation Singapore. He was also a member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights and the Disciplinary Committee for advocates and solicitors.
  Choor Singh participated as the chairman of a disciplinary committee set up to investigate complaints against a lawyer named Kalpanath Singh in 1989. After making a report at the end of proceedings where cause of sufficient gravity for disciplinary action against Kalpanath Singh was found, Choor Singh was made the respondent to a motion for an order of certiorari filed by Kalpanath Singh in the High Court, where serious allegations that Choor Singh had shown bias against him in that he had:
  threatened or warned a material witness before that witness had given evidence;
  He had indicated he had made his mind up about the veracity of the witness before that witness had given evidence, and before submissions had been made by counsel on behalf of the applicant at the hearing by the disciplinary committee; and
  questioned a material witness about his veracity and motives as a witness other than during the hearing and in the presence of the applicant and his counsel.
  It was found that Choor Singh had two private contacts with a material witness in the course of the disciplinary proceedings, even though it is a well-established rule that a decision-maker should not have contact with any party to the proceedings or any of his witnesses in the absence of the other party or his counsel. The High Court found that there was no actual bias, but there was evidence on which reasonable people might believe that Choor Singh might or could not bring an unprejudiced mind to the disciplinary inquiry. The key finding was that the two private contacts with the material witness gave an appearance of a real likelihood of bias. On this basis, the High Court gave the order and quashed the finding of the disciplinary committee. The case was reported as Re Singh Kalpanath (1992).
  A keen cricketer when younger, Singh learned to play golf and took up gardening. He also continued his close involvement with Indian and Sikh affairs. One of the young Sikhs who founded the Singapore Khalsa Association in 1931, and having been its president in the 1960s, he served as its patron and honorary chairman of the board of trustees. He was also a patron of the Singapore Indian Association and a trustee of the Sikh Welfare Council, He also wrote several books on Sikhism, including Bhai Maharaj Singh: Saint-soldier of the Sikh Faith (1991; later edition, 1999), The Sikh Gurus (1991), Understanding Sikhism (1994; later edition, 2001) and Who is a Sikh? (2004). Associate Professor Dr. Kirpal Singh, a writer and literary editor with the Singapore Management University, penned in the foreword to the 2001 edition of Understanding Sikhism that Singh had managed "to 'engage' the reader through the strategy of writing simply, honestly and without any pretense".
  Placing great importance on learning, Singh contributed to Sikh educational charities and other educational causes. He was a trustee of the Singapore Sikh Education Foundation that was inaugurated in 1990 to teach Punjabi to children, and a life member of the Singapore Indian Education Trust which provides financial assistance to Singaporean Indians for their education. As Chairman of the Sikh Advisory Board, he persuaded the Government to allow the use of government school buildings for the teaching of the Punjabi language. Classes were conducted by the Sri Guru Nanak Satsang Sabha at two schools on Saturday mornings, and were attended by about 400 Sikh children.
  On 18 Ja
caption: The Gurdwara Khalsa Dharmak Sabha in Rochor, Singapore, the foundation stone of which was laid by Choor Singh in 1994
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