All assets and liabilities from the Pasir-Ris Punggol Town Council (PRPTC) will be transferred to the new Sengkang Town Council (SKTC) by end-October, the Workers' Party's Sengkang team said in an update on Facebook on Sept. 8.

This includes the pending appeals for the lawsuit between Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) and PRPTC.

Independent panel involving senior counsels & law scholar

Sengkang GRC team said in its Facebook note on Sep. 8 that an independent panel has been appointed to make all decisions relating to the appeals.

The panel involves senior counsels Kenneth Tan and Lok Vi Ming, as well as an adjunct professor Kevin Tan, from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Law faculty.

Kenneth Tan was from the first batch of senior counsels appointed in 1997.

Lok was the President of the Law Society of Singapore in 2013 and 2014.

Besides Kevin Tan's role in NUS, he is also a public law scholar.

The independent panel members agreed to provide this service with no remuneration and in their own personal capacities.

Under its terms of reference, decisions made by the panel will be determined by a majority of votes by the three members, who are prohibited from abstaining, except where there is "an irreconcilable conflict of interest" that cannot be resolved beforehand.

Background

Earlier in July, the SKTC chairman He Ting Ru promised to ensure all decisions made with regard to the case are fair, transparent and in accordance with the law.

The civil case now involves SKTC as the town council takes over the management of parts of the Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC.

The lawsuit was initiated by PRPTC to recover alleged losses incurred by the former Punggol East SMC, which was managed by the AHTC between 2013 and 2015, after PAP won back the constituency from the Workers' Party (WP) in General Election 2015.

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Top photo via He Ting Ru's Facebook