Lawyer Lim Tean’s bid to prevent the police from continuing two investigations has been dismissed by a Judge.
Justice Ang Cheng Hock referred to Mr Lim’s application as “utterly devoid of any legal merit whatsoever” and ordered Mr Lim to pay the Attorney-General, the defendant, costs of S$7,500.
Mr Lim, 56, is involved in two criminal investigations; for alleged criminal breach of trust for misappropriating S$30,000 that he received from AXA Insurance on behalf of a former client and for an allegation of unlawful stalking against a former employee.
Mr Lim is said to have invited his former employee for dinner and drinks at his home and persistently addressed her with inappropriate terms like “darling” and “baby” despite her discomfort.
Represented by Counsel M.Ravi, Mr Lim sought a judicial review and a prohibiting order to stop the relevant investigating officers and the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) from investigating him for two criminal cases, as well as an order against the CAD and the police to discontinue investigations.
Read related: Lim Tean files application to disqualify the Attorney General from representing Commercial Affairs Department in lawsuit
In a statement on Tuesday (Dec 8), Justice Ang said he found that Mr Lim had fallen far short of showing that there was an arguable case in favour of granting the remedies he sought, a CNA article reported.
“The plaintiff had failed to show me that the police had acted in bad faith or in contrary to the constitution in this case,” said Justice Ang.
Responding to Mr Lim’s allegations of collusion by the two investigating officers, Justice Ang noted that Mr Lim had provided “nothing more than a bare assertion without any details and without any supporting evidence”.
He said: “The police cannot – and, indeed, should not – simply ignore a police report solely because the person under investigation has raised claims through counsel that the police report is baseless”.
Justice Ang continued that, the whole purpose of investigations is to determine whether the police report has grounds or not, and whether offences have been committed.
Also read: M Ravi: CAD has refused to provide names of 3 officers in “unlawful arrest” of Lim Tean
Opposition politician and lawyer Lim Tean filed for an order that the Attorney General be disqualified from representing the Commercial Affairs Department, the Singapore Police Force and their officers in connection with all matters in the police reports in relation to the ongoing investigations against him, according to his counsel, M.Ravi, on Wednesday (Oct 28).
In a Facebook post, Mr Ravi wrote that the basis of their application was that there lay a conflict of interest between the Attorney General and the Public Prosecutor’s office.
He wrote: “We are contending that the legal advice to the CAD and SPF in relation to the judicial review that I have filed separately challenging the legality of Tean’s arrest and the investigation that such investigation and arrest may render Tean being prosecuted for offences in Court and we are further contending that given Tean’s standing as a prominent opposition politician, there may be a risk of apparent biasness where justice must not only be done but also seen to be done”.
The two investigating officers for each case jointly called Mr Lim on Sep 23 to inform him that he had to go to the Commercial Affairs Department’s office on Sep 28 to answer questions related to the allegations.
Mr Lim said he would be unable to attend any interview until after Oct 9, but the police told him that he should write in formally if he wished to request that the interview be rescheduled.
On Sep 27, a day before Mr Lim was supposed to go down to the police office, his lawyer M.Ravi sent an email to the investigating officers to say that Mr Lim had “no intention of turning up for any interview” because CAD was “investigating trumped up charges” against Mr Lim which were “politically motivated”.
Mr Lim did not turn up for the scheduled interview on Sep 28. CAD officers then arrested Mr Lim at his office on Oct 2.
TISG has reached out to Mr Lim for comment and clarification. -/TISG