Former PAP politician appointed as Singapore High Court judge

It has been announced that Deputy Attorney-General (DAG) Hri Kumar Nair, 56, will be appointed as High Court Judge with effect from 2 Jan 2023.

In response to the appointment, Attorney-General Lucien Wong expressed appreciation for Mr Nair’s service, citing his involvement in several high-profile cases, including the appeal of the City Harvest case and the constitutional challenge to the Elected Presidency.

“He played a key role in AGC’s transformation, driving the restructuring of Crime Division to consolidate and strengthen its capabilities and establishing specialist tracks in AGC to provide legal officers more opportunities to develop their professional expertise,” Mr Wong said.

Mr Wong himself has had his appointment as AG, extended another three years at the age of 69 years old.

TOC also notes that two contempt of court investigations against Terry Xu were initiated by Mr Nair.

Mr Nair had been a politician before he was appointed DAG in the People’s Action Party (PAP), serving the Bishan-Toa Payoh Group Representation Constituency as a Member of Parliament between 2006 and 2015.

He announced that he would be quitting politics prior to the 2015 General Election, following his wife’s cancer diagnosis.

Mr Nair was earlier appointed as DAG on 16 Feb 2017 for a term of 3 years with effect from 1 March 2017 and had his appointment extended for another three years.

Mr Nair during his term as a PAP MP, has been harsh against the Singapore opposition politicians. Notably, during the motion debating about the Auditor-General Office (AGO)’s report where he accused the Aljunied Hougang Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) of brushing off the many lapses noted in the AGO report as “mistakes and omissions due to inadvertence, human error, IT system constraints and a lack of experience dealing with certain scenarios.“ and to misleadingly spin the report as an endorsement that there was no wrongdoing.