However, Bachoo Mohan Singh, a lawyer for more than 30 years, did have his three-month jail term reduced to one month by the High Court and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

Singh was found guilty in the lower court in 2007 for helping to file a claim which stated that the flat was to be sold for an inflated price of $490,000 in April 2004.

In the High Court on Monday, his lawyer, Senior Counsel Michael Hwang, said that Singh, 60, did not break the law by acting for a flat-owner to sue a buyer after a sale fell through.

He did what any reasonable lawyer would have done and acted on his client's instructions, said SC Hwang.

If the conviction was allowed to stand, lawyers here would have to investigate and pass judgment on the truth of all clients' claims before filing them in court, said SC Hwang, who is also president of the Law Society.

SC Hwang also said defence lawyers could threaten opposing lawyers by saying that the claims they filed were false, reporting these to the police and thus delaying hearings while police investigated these allegations.

But Justice Tay Yong Kwang said the issue in Singh's case was not whether a lawyer has to verify the truth of facts stated by a client, as described by SC Hwang.

Read the full report in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.