SINGAPORE – A disciplinary complaint against lawyer M. Ravi has been filed with the Law Society by the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) on Friday (Oct 24).

The complaint relates to “possible professional misconduct” by Mr Ravi, the AGC said in a statement on Friday evening.

It was filed because Mr Ravi had neither apologised nor retracted statements he made earlier which the AGC had said were “false, misleading, and unfairly and illegitimately discredit AGC”, the statement added.

The AGC further said that Mr Ravi’s conduct “falls short of the standards of professional conduct to be expected from an advocate and solicitor of the court.”

On Monday, Mr Ravi had told alternative news website The Online Citizen (TOC) that the prosecutor had been “overzealous” in prosecuting Gobi Avedian, and this “led to the death sentence” being given to his client by a High Court judge.

Mr Ravi made the comments after the five-judge Court of Appeal reversed a 2018 decision to convict Gobi on a capital charge for drug trafficking.

He also said, among other things, the apex court’s judgment calls into question “the fairness of the administration of justice in Gobi’s case by the prosecution”.

The AGC said in Friday’s statement that in the interview, Mr Ravi had made “serious allegations insinuating that the public prosecutor had acted in bad faith or maliciously” in appealing against Gobi’s original sentence of 15 years’ jail and 10 strokes of the cane, and that this “alleged misconduct led to the imposition of the death sentence” on Gobi.

AGC also noted the Court of Appeal made “no such adverse findings against the public prosecutor.”

On Tuesday, the AGC had issued a letter to Mr Ravi demanding he apologise for his comments and to retract them unconditionally.

He did not comply.

Instead, on Wednesday, he said the AGC’s demand for an apology was “plainly without basis”, and sought an apology from the public prosecutor to his client instead.

He also said, in his letter to Deputy Attorney-General Hri Kumar Nair, that he does not deny making the statements specified in the AGC’s letter to him on Tuesday.

But he denied the statements amounted to allegations that the public prosecutor had acted in bad faith or maliciously in prosecuting Gobi, and that he had made the statements while knowing or having reason to believe that they were false.

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