Lawyer M Ravi ordered to pay Attorney-General S$10,000 in costs over death row prisoners' court application

SINGAPORE: A High Court decide on Tuesday (Nov 30) ordered lawyer M Ravi to pay S$10,000 in private costs to the Attorney-General over a court application for 13 former and present prisoners on death row.Mr Ravi had filed an originating summons to start judicial evaluation proceedings on behalf of former death row prisoner Gobi Avedian and 12 different death row prisoners.The twelve are: Syed Suhail Syed Zin, Datchinamurthy Kataiah, Hamzah Ibrahim, Iskandar Rahmat, Saminathan Selvaraju, Rosman Abdullah, Roslan Bakar, Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad, Zamri Mohd Tahir, Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, Tan Kay Yong and Ramdhan Lajis.The 12 males face hanging for drug trafficking, aside from Iskandar, who was convicted of homicide in the Kovan double murders. Gobi's death sentence was put aside after a profitable legal evaluation application to the Court of Appeal.In the court application, Mr Ravi named the Attorney-General because the defendant, however later knowledgeable the decide at the beginning of the listening to that he wished to withdraw his application in its entirety.Usually, the plaintiffs would bear the defendant's costs, however counsel for the Attorney-General, Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng, requested for Mr Ravi to pay the costs personally.Mr Ravi protested and described this as a "threat" in opposition to him, vowing to report Mr Tan to the Law Society of Singapore for "unprofessional conduct".In a written judgment, Justice Ang Cheng Hock stated it might serve the ends of justice for Mr Ravi to personally bear the costs of the defendant, and that it might not be honest for the 13 prisoners to bear the costs.