Saminathan a/l Selvaraju v Attorney-General

Saminathan a/l Selvaraju is a prisoner awaiting capital punishment. He was convicted in the High Court of trafficking in diamorphine by delivering drugs to a co-accused, Mr Zulkarnain. He was found to be a courier but did not receive a certificate of substantive assistance, so the mandatory death sentence was imposed. His appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 8 May 2020. His clemency petition was rejected by the President on 22 February 2021. He also took part in a series of later civil and criminal applications, many brought with other inmates, which the judgment lists; these included constitutional challenges that were struck out or dismissed and a review application that was dismissed on 1 August 2024.

On Thursday 20 November 2025 he was told that his execution was scheduled for 27 November 2025. The next day he filed Originating Application (OAC) No 3 of 2025 under s 60G(1) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1969, seeking permission to make a post-appeal application in a capital case (PACC application) for orders prohibiting the execution and quashing the notice of execution, and a stay of execution. He relied on HC/OA 1213/2025, a pending constitutional challenge to the mandatory death penalty brought by seven members of the Transformative Justice Collective, to which he was not a party. The Attorney-General said the application was an attempt to bypass the safeguards of the PACC regime and had no reasonable prospect of success.

1. Whether a stay of execution should be granted because a constitutional challenge to the mandatory death penalty was pending in OA 1213.
2. Whether the intended PACC application had a reasonable prospect of success, which turned on whether OA 1213 did.
3. Whether the applicant could rely on new factual allegations raised in his late handwritten submissions.

On the first issue, the court held that a stay will not be granted merely because some proceedings are pending, whatever their merits. Otherwise prisoners and interest groups could stall every execution with endless unmeritorious challenges, contrary to Parliament's aim in the PACC Act of preventing abuse of process. Pannir Selvam Pranthaman v Attorney-General [2025] 1 SLR 237 did not mean the court must avoid looking at the merits of the pending case.

On the second issue, since OA 1213 was the whole basis of the application, the prospect of success depended on OA 1213. Leaving aside standing, the court examined each ground raised there under Arts 9(1), 12(1) and 93 of the Constitution: that the mandatory death penalty breaches natural justice, a fair trial and proportionality, is unfair, fails the reasonable classification test and intrudes on judicial power. Each had already been addressed by the Privy Council and the Court of Appeal in Ong Ah Chuan, Nguyen Tuong Van, Yong Vui Kong, Prabagaran and Jumaat. OA 1213 was a challenge to clear established law with no real issue to decide, so it had no reasonable prospect of success and there was no reason to await it.

On the third issue, submissions received on the morning of the decision alleged for the first time new evidence linking a drug syndicate figure to both accused and problems with identification and DNA evidence. The court held that a PACC application is not a second appeal; the applicant was trying to reargue facts decided on appeal and bring in new evidence without meeting the statutory review requirements, while changing the basis of his application.

Tay Yong Kwang JCA dismissed summarily, under s 60G(8) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1969 and without a hearing, the application for permission to file a PACC application and for a stay of execution, and also dismissed the applicant's further handwritten submissions as an abuse of process.