Penalty to come for lawyer who wasted Supreme Court’s time

West Australian State Administrative Tribunal (WASAT) president Justice Kathleen Glancy, assisted by Dr Michelle Evans-Bonner and Ross Povey, was highly critical of Singh for pursuing an estate matter that was doomed to fail between March 2019 and November 2020.

“The practitioner’s conduct in the Supreme Court … wasted limited court time and resources and was prejudicial to the proper administration of justice and likely to reduce public confidence in the administration of justice and the legal profession as a whole,” they said.

Singh also prepared an affidavit that fell “well short of the standards expected of a competent legal practitioner”, including because it did not give any explanation as to its relevance to the orders sought, and annexed 169 pages of documents without any context or indexing.

The West Australian lawyer then failed to comply with numerous court orders, including three that required him to file and serve an affidavit.

Singh was also criticised for lying to the court about a “severe” medical condition to secure an adjournment, when in reality he had been working on an unrelated matter that he said required urgent attention.

The tribunal was unable to draw an inference as to why he lied, particularly because Singh had not provided evidence as to his side of events, but floated that it could have been because he was seeking to avoid an upcoming hearing where he may have been required to show cause as to why a costs order should not be made against him personally.

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In a third finding of professional misconduct, Singh failed to comply, without reasonable excuse, with the disciplinary investigation.

Justice Glancy, Evans-Bonner, and Povey said it was conduct “that would reasonably be regarded as disgraceful or dishonourable by practitioners of good repute and competence”.

Citation: Legal Services and Complaints Committee and Singh [2026] WASAT 57.