Public Prosecutor v Piradeep s/o Sathish

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Kenneth Chin
• Judgment Date: 11 April 2023
• Neutral Citation: [2023] SGDC 62
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: District Arrest Case No 902693 of 2022 and 1 Other, Magistrate’s Appeals No 9047/2023/1
• Hearing Date: 16 January 2023,31 January 2023,06 March 2023
• Citation: [2023] SGDC 62
• Year: 2023
• Plaintiff Counsel: Theong Li Han (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: A. Rajandran (Messrs A. Rajandran)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Statutory offences,Prevention of Corruption Act,Private sector corruption,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing,Sentencing factors,Public health
• Published date: 13 June 2023

District Judge Kenneth Chin: Introduction

The accused pleaded guilty to a single proceeded charge punishable under s.6(a) read with s.29(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Rev Ed) (“PCA”) with one other charge taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing (“TIC”). After considering parties’ submissions, I sentenced the accused to a fine of $8,500 (in default 40 days imprisonment), with an additional penalty of $2,300 (in default 15 days imprisonment) pursuant to s.13 of the PCA. Being dissatisfied with the sentence, the Prosecution has appealed against the sentence imposed. I now set out the reasons for my decision.

The charges

The accused pleaded guilty to the following charge.

DAC-901273-2022 (“2nd Charge”)

You… are charged that you, sometime in August and September 2020, in Singapore, being an agent, to wit, a Dormitory Isolation Assistant in the employ of S11 Granuity Management Pte Ltd (“S11”), did abet by engaging in a conspiracy with Duraisamy Jaganathan (“Jagan”) and Navinder Prashad (“Navin”) to corruptly accept gratification from one Chandramohan S/O Bala Krishnan (“Mohan”), a Director of Shikaa’s Kitchen Pte Ltd (“Shikaa’s”), as an inducement to do acts in relation to your principal’s affairs, to wit, to further the business interests of Shikaa’s with S11, and in pursuance of that conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, a series of acts took place, to wit, Jagan did accept gratification from Mohan on at least two occasions between 19 August 2020 and 25 September 2020 of a total sum of $4,000, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under s 6(a) read with s 29(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Rev Ed)

The TIC charge was as follows:

DAC-901273-2022 (“1st Charge”)

You… are charged that you, on 18 August 2020, in Singapore, being an agent, to wit, a Dormitory Isolation Assistant in the employ of S11 Granuity Management Pte Ltd (“S11”), did corruptly accept gratification of a sum of S$600/- from one Chandramohan S/O Balakrishnan (“Mohan”), a Director of Shikaa’s Kitchen Pte Ltd (“Shikaa’s”), as an inducement to do an act in relation to your principal’s affairs, to wit, to further the business interests of Shikaa’s with S11, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under s 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Rev Ed)

Facts

The relevant facts, as presented in the Statement of Facts (“SOF”), are reproduced below. The accused admitted to these facts without qualification.

The accused is Piradeep s/o Sathish, a 31 year old male Singaporean bearing NRIC No. XXXXXXXXX. At the material time, he was a dormitory isolation assistant employed by S11 Granuity Management Pte Ltd (“S11”).

2. The co-accused persons are: a. Navinder Prashad (“Navin”), male/ 40 years old. At the material time, he was the Head of the Crisis Management Team employed by S11. b. Duraisamy Jaganathan (“Jagan”), male/ 29 years old. At the material time, he was a dormitory manager employed by S11. c. Chandramohan s/o Bala Krishnan (“Mohan”), male/ 44 years old. At the material time, he was a director and shareholder of Shikaa’s Kitchen Pte Ltd (“Shikaa’s”). 3. The involved party is Lawrence Lee Ter Chian (“Lawrence”). At the material time, Lawrence was the Business Development Director of S11. S11 is an accommodation provider for foreign workers in Singapore and runs various dormitories in Singapore, including PPT Lodge 1B of Punggol Dormitory (“the Dormitory”). 4. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a lockdown of the Dormitory from April 2020. S11 then set up a Crisis Management Team (“CMT”) to ensure the smooth running of the Dormitory during the Covid-19 pandemic. The CMT members comprised of the accused, Navinder, Jagan and one Rishibaraj Mohan (“Rishi”). Lawrence was in charge of the CMT and its members. 5. From April to July 2020, the food for the workers living in the Dormitory was provided by caterers engaged by the Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”). Sometime in July 2020, as the Covid-19 situation in the foreign worker dormitories had improved, MOM informed S11 that it would cease its provision of catering services for the dormitory residents. S11 thus had to take over the responsibility of providing food to the Dormitory’s residents, and accordingly, source and engage their own catering vendors. S11 initially appointed a managing agent, M/s Unity Gourmand (“Unity Gourmand”), which utilised their catering vendors to provide food for the Dormitory. However, there were issues with the food provided by Unity Gourmand’s existing catering vendors as the vendors could not cope with the food order volume. Following a discussion headed by Lawrence, S11 decided to source for and engage other external catering vendors. As the employers of the foreign workers staying at the Dormitory were already paying Unity Gourmand for the workers’ food, it was further decided that the payments to the external catering vendors would be made by Unity Gourmand. 6. Lawrence thus tasked Navin to source for prospective catering vendors and left it to him to sort out the administrative matters of engaging the vendors with Unity Gourmand. Navin in turn delegated the task of source for prospective catering vendors to Jagan. The accused and Rishi were also roped in to help with the sourcing of caterers. 7. The accused knew of a number of catering companies as he previously worked as a wedding planner. Accordingly, the accused approached Mohan, who indicated interest in the catering opportunity. In the course of the discussion, Mohan offered the accused gratification in the form of a “referral fee” to introduce him to someone who could recommend Shikaa’s to cater for S11, so as to further Shikaa’s dealings with S11. The accused accepted Mohan’s offer and gave him Navin and Jagan’s contact details so that Mohan could liaise with them directly. Shortly after liaising with Jagan, Shikaa’s was awarded a catering contract for S11. Pursuant to Mohan’s earlier corrupt agreement with the accused, Mohan transferred $600 to the accused on 18 August 2020. 8. After Shikaa’s was awarded the S11 catering contract, Mohan entered into another corrupt agreement with Navin and Jagan for Mohan to provide $4,000 as gratification to further Shikaa’s business interests with S11 by ensuring smooth business dealings between Shikaa’s and S11 and for Shikaa’s to continue being a caterer for S11. Mohan arrived at the sum of $4,000 after calculating the profits Shikaa’s had made from the S11 catering job. The accused thereafter informed Navin and Jagan that he should also have a share of the money from Mohan as he was the one who had brought Shikaa’s in. After internal discussion, Navin, Jagan and the accused decided to split the $4,000 as follows: $1,700 to the accused, $1,000 to Navin and Jagan each, and the remaining $300 to the dormitory residents who assist in the food distribution. 9. Accordingly, from August to September 2020, Mohan gave Jagan a total of $4,000 in cash and via bank transfer. The money was then distributed to Navin, the accused and the dormitory residents pursuant to the agreement set out in paragraph 8 above. Navin transferred the accused his share (i.e. $1,700) via PayNow. The accused has since spent his share. 10. S11 later terminated its catering contract with Shikaa’s sometime in September 2020 after several instances of late delivery of food and spoilt food. 11. By virtue of the foregoing, the accused, pursuant to a conspiracy with Jagan, Navin and Mohan, did, together with Jagan and Navin, corruptly obtain gratification amounting to a total of $4,000 from Mohan as an inducement to do acts in relation to the accused’s principal, S11’s affairs to further the business interests of Shikaa’s with S11. The accused has therefore committed an offence under s 6(a) read with s 29(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Rev Ed). Prescribed penalties

The prescribed punishment for an offence punishable under s.6(a) read with s.29(a) of the PCA is a fine not exceeding $100,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years, or both.

Antecedents

The accused had no prior antecedents.

Parties’ submissions Prosecution’s submission on sentence

The Prosecution submitted for a short custodial sentence with the duration of the custodial term left to the Court’s discretion. Additionally, the Prosecution sought a penalty order under s.13 PCA for $2,300 to disgorge the gratification received by the accused. In support of this position, the Prosecution made the following arguments: First, the main sentencing considerations in corruption cases are deterrence and punishment (PP v Ang Seng Thor [2011] 4 SLR 217 at [33]. The present case is a private sector corruption case which falls within category one of the three broad and non-exhaustive categories set out by Sundaresh Menon CJ in PP v Syed Mostofa Romel [2015] SGHC 117 (“Romel”). The applicable sentencing framework in the present case is set out in Goh Ngak Eng v PP [2022] SGHC 254 (“Goh Ngak Eng”). which applies to private sector corruption cases under s.6(a) and s.6(b) of the PCA. The Prosecution assessed the present case to fall under slight harm and low culpability within the Goh Ngak Eng framework, and identified the following factors: Actual loss to principal: There was no actual quantifiable loss. However, S11 suffered loss of ensuring that the best caterers were engaged as the award was not based on competitive quotes or quality of food submitted, but on account of the bribes that were given to the accused and other members of the CMT. Benefit to the giver of gratification: Mohan was able to secure the catering contract from S11. Type and extent of loss to third parties: Third party vendors were deprived of an opportunity to be considered for the...