page_title: Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni
section_title: Facts and issues
hierarchical_section_title: Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni / Facts and issues
caption_attribution_description: English: A night view of a Housing and Development Board apartment block in Woodlands, Singapore.
context_page_description: Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni was a 2006 administrative law judgment in which the High Court of Singapore quashed a decision made by the Disciplinary Committee of the Law Society of Singapore against a lawyer, Alan Shankar s/o Anant Kulkarni. The Disciplinary Committee had found Shankar, who was a solicitor, guilty of grossly improper misconduct under the Legal Profession Act. Shankar applied to the High Court for judicial review on the ground that the Committee's ruling was affected by apparent bias.
  Judicial Commissioner Sundaresh Menon considered the differences between two commonly used tests for apparent bias: the "real likelihood" and "reasonable suspicion" tests. He held that there were notable differences between the two tests, contrary to the previous view taken by a different High Court judge in Tang Kin Hwa v. Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Board. He took the view that the reasonable suspicion test was the applicable test in Singapore.
  Two other legal issues were also considered, namely, whether the Disciplinary Committee had applied the wrong standard of proof, and whether it had shown a sufficient degree of detachment.
context_section_description: The complainants, Abdul Malik bin Sukor, an undischarged bankrupt, and his wife, Mislia binte Yusof, wished to sell their Housing and Development Board flat in Woodlands. They sought the help of a real estate agent named Rudolph Khoo, who informed them that Malik would have to be discharged from his bankruptcy before they could sell their flat. Khoo offered to help the complainants obtain a loan of S$25,000, to be repaid upon the sale of the flat. To facilitate these procedures, Khoo introduced a lawyer, Alan Shankar s/o (son of) Anant Kulkarni, to the complainants, who was to assist them in applying for a discharge from bankruptcy on Malik's behalf, acting for them in the sale of their flat, and documenting several loans that they had procured from one Chiang Bin Kwang.
  The loans from Chiang were to be repaid with the proceeds from the sale of the flat. Following this, Mislia asked for two more loans from Chiang, which Shankar helped to arrange. In total, she signed three agreements to borrow a sum of $88,500, consisting of $45,000, $30,000 and $13,500 on three separate occasions. However, Mislia claimed she only received $40,000, consisting of $25,000, $10,000 and $5,000 on each of the occasions. Four years later, the complainants lodged a complaint against Shankar with the Law Society of Singapore. Following an investigation, Shankar was tried by the Disciplinary Committee of the Law Society and convicted of three counts of grossly improper conduct contrary to section 83(2)(b) of the Legal Profession Act. The charges were based on allegations that Shankar had acted for both the complainants and Chiang without advising the complainants of the consequences of this conflict of interest, that he had not taken full instructions from the complainants, that he had asked the complainants to sign documents without properly explaining their effect, and that he had not ascertained whether the sums of money that Chiang paid to Mislia were in line with the loan agreements.
  During the Disciplinary Committee hearing, Mislia had testified that Chiang had issued her cheques for the first two loans, but that they had gone to Chiang's bank where he had cashed the cheques and then given her only part of the face value of the cheques. To counter this evidence, Shankar had called two bank employees as witnesses. He claimed that the Disciplinary Committee had questioned the bank witnesses more aggressively than the complainants or Shankar himself, and had essentially cross-examined the witnesses to induce them to make certain factual concessions which weakened Shankar's case.
  Shankar sought an order from the High Court to quash the Disciplinary Committee's decision finding him guilty of the charges. The issues before the Court were:
  Whether the Disciplinary Committee had acted in a manner that gave rise to apparent bias or a reasonable suspicion of bias.
  Whether the Disciplinary Committee had maintained a degree of detachment necessary to give the applicant a fair trial.
  Whether the Disciplinary Committee had applied the wrong standard of proof during the inquiry.
  The High Court found in favour of Shankar on the first and second issues, but not on the third issue due to insufficient evidence.
caption: A night view of Housing and Development Board flats in Woodlands. The complainants' wish to sell their flat in this public housing estate eventually led to them complaining about their lawyer's conduct to the Law Society of Singapore. After the Law Society's Disciplinary Committee found the lawyer guilty of grossly improper conduct, he challenged this decision in the High Court by way of judicial review.
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