AFTER his application to be reinstated to the Bar in 2004 failed, Mr Gnaguru Thamboo Mylvaganam threw himself into voluntary work to strengthen his case when he next appealed.

It nearly backfired.

At his second try on Friday, the Court of Three Judges appeared uneasy when told that the former lawyer had gone to teach Cambodian judges for a non-profit organisation Retired & Senior Volunteer Programme (RSVP), without informing it that he was a disbarred lawyer.

But after deliberating for 20 minutes whether this was more accidental than deliberate, the Court allowed the reinstatement of Mr M.G. Guru, as he is commonly known.

The public gallery broke into applause.

As soon as the judges left the courtroom, eight friends came forward to congratulate him.

With tears in his eyes, Mr Guru told reporters that he was 'overwhelmed' as he thought he might fail again. Now 54, he was struck off the roll after he was jailed three weeks and fined $1,000 in 1993 for helping clients obtain sham medical certificates in order to avoid court proceedings.

At his first try for reinstatement three years ago, the then Chief Justice Yong Pung How noted that the recommendations from lawyers only attested to his love for the law and his friendly disposition and not to his trustworthiness and good character.

This was rectified on Friday when Mr Guru's lawyer Abraham Vergis of Drew & Napier held him up as a respected and trusted legal officer for two engineering firms and highlighted the character references from six senior members of the Bar.

But Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang Boon Leong was intrigued when told that the Attorney-General Chambers had initially objected to Mr Guru's application to be reinstated.

'Any reasonable person would have realised that such information was relevant for the assignment to Cambodia,' said AGC's counsel Mavis Chionh.

She then informed the court that the AGC would not oppose the reinstatement as Mr Guru has agreed not to refer to that matter.

Mr Vergis argued that the non-disclosure of being a disbarred lawyer may not be an important point as Mr Guru only taught 'rudimentary legal English' to the foreign judges.

'It could be that RSVP never asked if he was a practising lawyer,' said Mr Vergis, pointing out that it was more likely a case of omission rather than of deceit.

Mr Guru had been practising for four years when he committed the offence that led to him being kicked out of the Bar. He was a civil servant before that.

His lawyer also pointed out that unlike the only two lawyers to be reinstated in the last 20 years - Mr Glenn Knight and Mr Lim Cheng Peng, who had been disbarred for corruption - Mr Guru had not benefitted from his offence.

'He was merely trying to help clients who were unable to pay the fines or were not ready to go to prison to delay their court hearings,' said Mr Vergis.

The Law Society also did not oppose the application as Mr Guru agreed to abide by certain conditions.

These include not running his own law firm for two years and working only for a lawyer with at least 12 years of practice during this time.

He is also not allowed to handle funds.