Gurdip Singh

Mr Singh holds a LL.B. (Hons) from the University of London (1979) and was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple Inn (UK) in 1981. After completing the Post Graduate Course with the Board of Legal Education in 1982, was admitted to the Rolls of Advocates & Solicitors Singapore in 1983.

He joined George Sandosham & Co. in 1982 and was made a partner upon being called to the Bar. In 1997, he took over the practice of Messer George Sandosham, Gurdip and Partners. In 2003, Ms George Sandosham & Partners was dissolved, and the partnership of Ms Gurdip & Gill was established.

Mr Singh specialises mainly in Criminal Litigation. He has been involved in thousands of criminal cases of varying gravities and has successfully defended many persons at trial. He has conducted hundreds of trials and appeals in his 33-year practice as a criminal lawyer and has also appeared in the Military Court Martial Tribunals on several occasions in the defence of the hapless military officers and soldiers. He had also conducted some civil litigation matters and divorce cases in the High Court but has chosen to specialize in the criminal law.

Mr Singh acted for the Chief Engineer Evans in connection with the cable car tragedy at Sentosa Island in the eighties involving the vessel the “Eniwetok” which attracted a great deal of interest and publicity locally and internationally. Evans was eventually convicted of mere forgery and got off with a fine.

One of his landmark cases was that of Mok Swee Kok v Public Prosecutor where the accused, a 17-year-old student, was charged initially with the murder of a Filipino maid. Subsequently he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of robbery with hurt. Mok was sentenced a 7 years imprisonment term and caning. Dissatisfied with the severity of a sentence, the case went up to the Court of Appeal and was later referred to a specially constituted Court of Five Judges, the highest Judicial Tribunal on a matter of a point of law. Mok’s appeal was allowed and the charge against him was further reduced to abetment of house breaking and theft and his sentence was further reduced to a term of 5 years only. This case was later documented in one of the episodes of Crime Watch.