Super City forgery accused named

Daljit Singh in court on October 5. Photo / Richard Robinson

The Super City candidate charged with forging documents to influence the election can now be named.

Name suppression for Daljit Singh has been lifted now that he has decided against appealing a High Court decision refusing to protect his identity.

Mr Singh is a Labour Party candidate for the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board of the Manukau Ward of the new Auckland Council.

He and another man, who still has name suppression, appeared in the Manukau District Court on Tuesday jointly charged with a representative count of forgery.

The pair are alleged to have forged change of address forms to allegedly falsely enrol voters in Papatoetoe.

Name suppression for Mr Singh was declined by Judge Heather Simpson at his first court appearance, but the ruling was appealed.

That appeal was dismissed by Justice John Priestley in the High Court at Auckland last night.

But interim name suppression continued until noon today when Mr Singh's lawyer Ron Mansfield said he would ask for special leave to lodge a challenge with the Court of Appeal.

The application was not lodged with the Court of Appeal so Mr Singh can be named.

When Mr Mansfield indicated last night he would seek to appeal the High Court ruling, Justice Priestley said he was "gravely concerned" that the statutory right for special leave to appeal "may result in information which I consider should be in the public domain, not being disclosed".

"There is in my judgment a very real risk (and this comment is not intended to be critical of Mr Mansfield) that the right to seek leave to appeal might result in exactly the same outcome, for procedural reasons, as would have been the case if the appeal had been allowed."

Mr Singh told NZPA today it was his decision to drop plans to keep his name secret.

"I don't want to hide anything so I tell my lawyer not to go further."

"I strongly deny the allegations and I will defend myself."

He said the charges were "mischievously brought" but he would not elaborate.

"The matter is actually in the court and I don't want to say much further but I definitely say I strongly deny all the allegations."

Singh, who is standing for the Papatoetoe Community Board, said the charges had affected the way people had voted for him, even though his name had only just been published.

"My campaign is affected, yes," he said.

He said it was a long story and he wanted everything to come out in court, which was why he was not saying any more.

He said he was confident his name would be cleared.

"I am absolutely a law-abiding citizen and I have a good faith in the judiciary so I am pretty sure it will work."

- With NZPA