In 1963, after achieving a first grade in his Senior Cambridge (now 'O' Level) examinations, he went back to India to study medicine in Madras (now Chennai) under the request of his mother.

While pursuing a degree in law, he participated in various extra-curricular activities, including playing on the university's football team and serving as secretary-general of the Socialists' Club.

[17] In March 1976,[18] Anandan was arrested by the police for suspected involvement in a secret society under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act.

[21] In 2011, Anandan, alongside law practitioners including Rajan Menon, founded RHTLaw TaylorWessing and stayed on as one of its senior partners until his death.

[9][21] Anandan had started his practice handling mainly civil, accident and family cases but soon began gravitating towards criminal law.

In his lifetime, he had handled over a thousand criminal cases involving a wide range of crimes, including murder, rape, domestic worker abuse, drug trafficking and white-collar offences.

As one of Singapore's top criminal defence lawyers, he had appeared so frequently in the media that some people called him a "publicity hound".

On 31 October 2000, he was killed along with 82 other passengers and crew in the crash of Singapore Airlines Flight 006 at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taipei, Taiwan.

[6][4] At around 2300 hours (GMT+8) on 7 January 2015, Anandan died while hospitalised at Singapore General Hospital of complications from heart failure, which he was diagnosed with in 2014.

[3][6] Anandan was honoured by the Association of Muslim Lawyers on 28 October 2014 for his substantial contributions towards the legal profession and being a champion of pro bono work for several decades.

A tribute ceremony was held at the Supreme Court Auditorium and attended by some 400 members of the legal community, including Law Minister K. Shanmugam, former President S. R. Nathan, Attorney-General V. K. Rajah and several judges.

During his career, starting from 1970 until his death in 2015, Anandan had appeared in numerous notable cases, especially those which involved the death penalty or cases of aggravated murder which shocked the nation of Singapore, like those of Anthony Ler who manipulated and instigated a 15-year-old boy to kill his estranged wife in 2001;[35][36] Took Leng How, who murdered Huang Na in 2004;[37] robber and kidnapper Abdul Nasir bin Amer Hamsah;[17] former air hostess Constance Chee Cheong Hin who killed a four-year-old girl;[38] Tan Chor Jin, who shot a nightclub owner in Serangoon;[17] and Leong Siew Chor, who killed and dismembered his lover.

[17] Among many other cases, Anandan also represented Muhammad Nasir Abdul Aziz who killed his lover's husband,[39][40] Quek Loo Ming who caused the death of an elderly woman by poisoning,[41] Pathip Selvan Sugumaran who killed his girlfriend,[42] Wu Yun Yun who killed her brother-in-law,[43] Eu Lim Hoklai who fatally stabbed a massage parlour owner,[44] Salakau gang member Khairul Famy bin Mohamed Samsudin who fatally assaulted national football player Sulaiman bin Hashim,[45] security guard Maniam Rathinswamy who murdered a loan shark,[46] baby-killer Soosainathan Dass Saminathan,[47] maid abuser Ng Hua Chye who abused and killed his maid,[17] Mohamad Ashiek Salleh who murdered a taxi driver in Yishun,[48] drug trafficker Pang Siew Fum who was assisted by Cheong Chun Yin to import 2 kg of heroin,[49] fishmonger Lau Lee Peng who robbed and murdered his friend and fruit-seller Tan Eng Yan,[50] schizophrenic Heng Boon Chai who killed his uncle, kidnapper Tan Ping Koon who abducted a child for ransom,[51] army deserter Christopher Samson Anpalagan who robbed and murdered a lorry driver,[52] lorry driver S Nagarajan Kuppusamy who killed a prison warden,[53] Indonesian maid Purwanti Parji who killed her employer's mother-in-law, Malaysian drug trafficker Vignes Mourthi,[54] lorry driver Ramu Annadavascan who murdered a boilerman,[17] Vadivelu Kathikesan who killed two men in 1979,[55] Jahabar Bagurudeen who killed a moneychanger,[56] Ong Pang Siew who strangled his stepdaughter,[57] convicted child abuser and con-man Chong Keng Chye,[58] and the five gang members who were accused of murdering 19-year-old Republic Polytechnic student Darren Ng Wei Jie at Downtown East in 2010.