K. S. Rajah, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetK. S. Rajah
lawyer and former Judicial Commissioner
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Perai, Malaysia
About K. S. Rajah
- Kasinather Saunthararajah PBM SC (3 March 1930 – 17 June 2010), known professionally as K.
- S.
- Rajah, was a Senior Counsel and Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore.
- Born in Penang, he came to Singapore in 1950 and worked as a teacher before embarking on part-time law studies at what was later known as the University of Singapore, graduating in 1963 with a Bachelor of Laws with honours (LL.B.
- (Hons.)).
- He then spent the next 22 years with the Singapore Legal Service, eventually heading the civil and criminal divisions of the Attorney-General's Chambers and also serving as Director of the Singapore Legal Aid Bureau and head of the Official Assignee and Public Trustee's Office.
- In 1985 he retired from the Legal Service and went into private practice, establishing the firm of B.
- Rao & K.
- S.
- Rajah. In 1991, Rajah was appointed a Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore.
- His time on the Bench was marked by a number of significant family law cases, including one in 1991 in which he held that since the gender of a transsexual person was to be determined according to biological criteria, sex reassignment surgery did not alter a person's gender.
- Thus, a marriage between an individual who had undergone a female-to-male sex change operation and a woman was void, being a marriage between two persons of the same gender.
- The decision prompted Parliament to amend the Women's Charter in 1996 to permit transsexual people to marry in the capacity of their new gender. Rajah retired as a judge in 1995 and joined Harry Elias & Partners (now Harry Elias Partnership LLP) as a consultant.
- He also became the first President of the Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents in 1996.
- The following year, he was appointed Senior Counsel in the first group of lawyers to be conferred this status.
- A member of the Singapore Mediation Centre and the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, he was active as a mediator and arbitrator.
- A frequent contributor to the Malayan Law Journal and the Singapore Law Gazette, particularly on criminal law and constitutional matters, a number of his legal articles provoked controversy. Rajah was the Chairman of the Sri Aurobindo Society Singapore, the Secretary and later the President of the Hindu Centre, and the Vice-President of the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association.
- He also served with the Hindu Endowments Board and the Society for the Physically Disabled.
- He was conferred the Pingat Bakti Masyarakat (Public Service Medal) at the National Day Awards in August 2002, and in October 2008 received the C.C.
- Tan Award, which recognizes lawyers who display the highest ideals of the profession, from the Law Society of Singapore.
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