Sandeep Gobindeep & Co.

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the burden of proving the insanity defence under section 84 of the Penal Code and section 105 of the Evidence Act 1950, and the requirement that an accused be called to enter a defence before an order for safe custody is made.

Sandeep Gobindeep & Co. appears in the corpus as counsel in appellate civil procedure and serious criminal appeals, argued before the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan).

On the civil side the firm acted for the respondent in connected matters involving CIMB Bank Berhad, where the court considered an application for an extension of time to file and serve appeal records alongside an application to strike out the notices and memoranda of appeal under Rule 18 of the Rules of the Court of Appeal 1994, weighing the reasons for allowing an extension of time against the basis for striking out, a question that goes to the balance between procedural discipline and the right to be heard on appeal.

On the criminal side the firm appeared in murder appeals under section 302 of the Penal Code. In one matter, acting for the respondent, the court addressed the defence of unsoundness of mind under section 84 of the Penal Code, the burden of proving insanity on the accused on the balance of probabilities under section 105 of the Evidence Act 1950, and an order under section 348(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code placing the accused in safe custody at a mental hospital, holding that the High Court had erred in making such an order at the close of the prosecution case without calling on the accused to enter a defence. In another murder appeal, acting for the appellant, the firm appeared where a conviction and death sentence were revisited and, the appeal being found meritorious, the capital sentence was set aside and a term of thirty years' imprisonment from the date of arrest with strokes of the rotan was substituted. The firm's record combines appellate procedural work with weighty criminal-appellate advocacy in homicide cases, and it reflects a chambers attentive both to the procedural gateways that govern whether an appeal is heard at all and to the substantive safeguards, such as the proper treatment of an insanity defence and the requirement to call an accused to his defence, on which the fairness of a capital trial depends.