DEFENCE OPENS Reading
Mr. Singh described the court proceedings as they unfolded after his customer was charged in January at the receiving.
Before Iswaran received the second set of expenses involving Mr. Lum, he informed Justice Vincent Hoong that preliminary trial times had been set for the first 27 fees, which he referred to as the OBS costs.
The trial had sought to “push off” the first set of charges, Mr Singh said.  ,
However, the defense requested that all charges be heard separately and objected to the next set of fees being heard first.
” In truth, the OBS trial had n’t been fixed, what the prosecution was and is today seeking is to push off the OBS trial and to use the dates that have been allocated for the OBS charges, for the ( Lum Kok Seng ) charges.  ,
Mr. Singh said,” That never happen unless the trial convinces you that there is a valid reason for that.”  ,
Mr. Singh added that the prosecution’s state of resource limitations was “extraordinary” and that it has not established any fair grounds.
He noted that there were more attorneys for the trial than for the defense, and that the matter had not arisen since the test dates for the first cast of charges had been set.  ,
He also suggested that the trial should conduct individual tests to give the defense a “preview” of the trial.  ,
Because his client has been awaiting his time in court, Mr. Singh argued that having limited resources was” not a good base” to adjourn a trial.  ,
Credited to” similar features” in the fees, the attorney claimed that the charges may be heard in a joint test. He also made note of the fact that his customer was accused of stealing money from the public sector on a total of 32 counts.
” ( A grand total of 32 charges )  , all invoking a section which has never, to my knowledge, been invoked in Singapore courts. This is going to be the first time the Singapore courts are dealing with ( Section ) 165, its ingredients and what , defence is available,” said Mr Singh.  ,
This was a matter of common attention, he argued.  ,  ,