SINGAPORE – Lawyer Arfat Selvam, the widow of retired judge G.P. Selvam, has sued her grandson for breach of confidence and defamation in a dispute related to her late husband’s will.
Mrs Selvam, a former president of the Law Society of Singapore, and her two daughters are the executors and trustees of Mr Selvam’s will.
Some details of the dispute emerged in written grounds of decision issued on March 16 by Senior Judge Tan Siong Thye.
Justice Tan was giving written reasons to explain why he upheld certain orders that Mrs Selvam and her daughters had sought while the case is going through the court process.
The orders include an injunction to restrain Mrs Selvam’s grandson, Mr Sharad Selvam Ramachandra, from disclosing confidential material, and a search order for confidential material.
The judge had in 2025 granted the orders to safeguard the confidential material and to prevent Mr Ramachandra from destroying relevant evidence of how he obtained the material.
In his bid to set aside the orders, Mr Ramachandra argued for an “iniquity exception”, where evidence of unlawful actions are not protected by the law of confidence.
He asserted that the claimants had brought the suit against him to block his attempts at “whistle-blowing” the trio’s alleged wrongdoings.
These alleged unlawful acts included misadministration of the estate as well as an alleged property tax evasion scheme by falsely obtaining owner-occupier tax relief on a property.
Justice Tan rejected these arguments.
The judge said Mr Ramachandra’s assertions were unsubstantiated and that the exception applied only to legal professional privilege.
Justice Tan added that he found Mr Ramachandra to be “shrewd and untrustworthy”, and concluded that there was a high risk that the defendant would destroy the relevant evidence.
“In particular, his admission to tampering with documents to suit his legal agenda showed that he had manipulated the evidence of how he had unlawfully obtained the confidential material,” said the judge.
Mr G. P. Selvam, who died on Oct 23, 2022, has been described as a “legendary admiralty lawyer”.
He was elevated to the bench in 1991 as judicial commissioner, and later appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court, a role he held until his retirement in 2001.
