Public Prosecutor v Mohanarajan s/o Selvarajan [2026] SGDC 180

Introduction

Active Synergy Trading and Consultancy Pte Ltd (“ASTC”) was a learning service provider (“LSP”) certified to provide training in several courses for foreign workers, including the Metal Scaffold Erection Course (“MSEC”), the Supervision of Metal Scaffold Erection Course (“SMSEC”) and the Work-at-Height Course for workers (“WAHW”). ASTC’s conduct of such courses was governed by technical notes published by the Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”), which stipulated certain requirements on course duration, practical training, and the conduct of assessments. It was alleged that sometime in 2019, ASTC failed to comply with the conditions set out in the technical notes. Instead, it routinely conducted courses of shortened durations with little to no practical training. Trainers also provided assistance to foreign workers during their assessments, reflecting a systemic disregard for the stipulated requirements.

The accused, Mohanarajan s/o Selvarajan, conducted training and assessments for foreign workers across the three courses at ASTC during the material period. The key issue in this case was whether he was involved in a conspiracy to engage in the alleged malpractices at ASTC as highlighted above.

The Prosecution contended that he was. Accordingly, the accused faced 20 charges under s 53(b) of the Workplace Safety and Health Act (Cap 354A, 2009 Rev Ed) (“WSHA”) read with s 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed). All the charges were of a similar nature, for abetting by engaging in a conspiracy with ASTC through its director Shivasanker S (“Shivasanker”), to give seven foreign workers certain certificates for the purpose of the WSHA, which the accused knew to be false in a material particular. Pursuant to that conspiracy, ASTC gave the foreign workers certificates falsely stating that they had successfully completed the courses on specified dates. Each certificate related to the completion of one of the three courses – MSEC, SMSEC or WAHW.

The accused claimed trial to the charges.

After carefully evaluating the evidence adduced during the trial, and the submissions of both parties, I found that the Prosecution had proven the charges against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt and convicted the accused on all the charges accordingly.

After considering the parties’ submissions on sentence, I imposed an imprisonment term of three months on each charge. I ordered that the sentences for five charges were to run consecutively. These charges related to five different foreign workers across a range of courses. The global sentence imposed was therefore 15 months’ imprisonment. The following table summarises the Prosecution’s and Defence’s positions on sentence, and the sentence imposed:

Prosecution’s position on sentence

Defence’s position on sentence

Sentence imposed

Individual sentence

Three and a half to four months’ imprisonment

Two months’ imprisonment

Three months’ imprisonment

Consecutive sentences

If the Court imposed three and a half months’ imprisonment per charge, five sentences to run consecutively.

If the Court imposed four months’ imprisonment per charge, four sentences to run consecutively.

Seven sentences to run consecutively (one charge per foreign worker).

Five sentences to run consecutively.

Adjustment for totality

Nil

Reduce imprisonment term by two months

Nil

Global sentence

to 17½ months’ imprisonment

months’ imprisonment

months’ imprisonment

The accused filed an appeal against conviction and sentence. The Defence applied for, and I granted, a stay of execution on the accused’s imprisonment term.

When I delivered my verdict and decision on sentence, I provided my oral grounds. These are the full reasons for my decision.

Undisputed facts

A Statement of Agreed Facts (“SOAF”) was tendered pursuant to s 267(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (“CPC”). The following facts extracted from the SOAF were undisputed.

During the material period, ASTC was an LSP certified to provide training for the following courses:

(a) MSEC;

(b) SMSEC; and

(c) WAHW.

At that time, the accused was a trainer (also referred to as “facilitator” in the Technical Notes) with ASTC.

Investigations revealed that ASTC gave certificates to the following seven foreign workers:

No.

DSC No.

Name of Foreign Worker

Certificates

(Annex G of SOAF)

1.

900915/2023

Yousuf Abu

MSEC (Cert No: MSEC-1908 074)

2.

900916/2023

WAHW (Cert No: WAH(W)-1909-023)

3.

900917/2023

SMSEC (Cert No: SMSEC-1909-013)

4.

900918/2023

Hossain Anwar

MSEC (Cert No: MSEC-1909-008)

5.

900919/2023

SMSEC (Cert No: SMSEC-1909-024)

6.

900920/2023

Rana Juwel

MSEC (Cert No: MSEC-1908-048)

7.

900921/2023

SMSEC (Cert No: SMSEC-1908-066)

8.

900922/2023

WAHW (Cert No: WAH(W)-1909-004)

9.

900923/2023

Husain Mohammad Abu

WAHW (Cert No: WAH(W)-1908-034)

10.

900924/2023

SMSEC (Cert No: SMSEC-1908-001)

11.

900925/2023

MSEC (Cert No: MSEC-1907-045)

12.

900926/2023

Jagdeep Singh

MSEC (Cert No: MSEC-1909-029)

13.

900927/2023

SMSEC (Cert No: SMSEC-1910-055)

14.

900928/2023

WAHW (Cert No: WAH(W)-1910-073)

15.

900929/2023

Subrarnanian Pirithivirajan

WAHW (Cert No: WAH(W)-1909-018)

16.

900930/2023

MSEC (Cert No: MSEC-1908-068)

17.

900931/2023

SMSEC (Cert No SMSEC-1908-008)

18.

900932/2023

Manik Mohammad Abdul Baser

SMSEC (Cert No: SMSEC-1909-023)

19.

900933/2023

20.

900934/2023

MSEC (Cert No: MSEC-1909-072)

According to the MOM Technical Notes for LSPs, Part I, Version 2.0 (Dated 1 Dec 2016), all LSPs were to comply with the requirements set out in the MOM Technical Notes (Annex C to the SOAF).

Further, according to same technical notes, the requirements for assessment included:

(a) The LSP shall be responsible for the proper conduct of any assessment and for ensuring a robust system is in place to prevent any irregularity or misconduct that may occur prior, during and after the conduct of the assessment.

(b) The LSP shall ensure that no acts of misconduct, dishonesty, cheating or plagiarism occur during the assessment.

According to the MOM Technical Notes for Metal Scaffold Erection Course (PART II), Version 1.0 (Dated 14 Oct 2014) (Annex D to SOAF), the course requirements for the MSEC were as follows:

(a) The course duration must be 38 hours.

(b) For practical training, facilitators were to demonstrate the erection/dismantling of the different types of scaffolds, as prescribed in the course. Learners were then to erect/dismantle the different scaffolds as per the course instructions.

According to the MOM Technical Notes for Supervision of Metal Scaffold Erection Course (PART II), Version 1.0 (Dated 14 October 2014) (Annex E to SOAF), the course requirements for SMSEC were as follows:

(a) The course duration must be 75 hours comprising theory (28 hours), practical (39.5 hours), assessments (6 hours) and course evaluation/debrief (1.5 hours).

(b) For practical training, facilitators were to demonstrate the erection/dismantling of the different types of scaffolds, as prescribed in the course. Learners were then to erect/dismantle the different scaffolds as per the course instructions.

According to the MOM Technical Notes for Work-at-Heights Course for workers (PART II), Version 1.1 (Dated 14 October 2014) (Annex F of SOAF), the approved training syllabus for the course (which included theory and practical lessons) was stated at the Course Reference Matrix (Work-At-Height Course for Workers). In essence, the matrix stipulated the course durations for different components of the theory and practical lessons. The technical notes also detailed requirements for the conduct of assessments. The total duration of theory and practical training, as well as assessments, was mandated as 7 hours and 30 minutes.

Relevant provisions

The relevant provisions as at the time of the offences are as follows:

Elements of the charges

For each charge under s 53(b) of the WSHA read with s 109 of the Penal Code, the following elements must be proved (Chai Chien Wei Kelvin v Public Prosecutor [1998] 3 SLR(R) 619 at [76]):

(a) First, the accused abetted by engaging in a conspiracy with ASTC through Shivasanker.

(b) Second, the object of the conspiracy was to give each foreign worker a certificate for the purpose of the WSHA.

(c) Third, pursuant to the conspiracy, an act took place, namely, ASTC gave each foreign worker a certificate falsely stating that he had successfully completed the course in question.

(d) Fourth, each certificate was false in a material particular.

(e) Fifth, the accused knew that each certificate was false in a material particular.

The essence of a conspiracy was agreement. A frequent method of proving a conspiracy was to show that the words and actions of the parties indicated their concert in pursuit of a common object or design, giving rise to the inference that their actions must have been co-ordinated by arrangement beforehand: Public Prosecutor v Yeo Choon Poh [1993] 3 SLR(R) 302 at [19]-[20].

Where persons acted together in pursuance of this common criminal object, every act done in furtherance of this object by each of them would be taken, in law, to be done by all. Parties to a conspiracy were therefore jointly engaged in the criminal enterprise as if they had each entered into it by themselves, although their respective punishments might differ depending on their level of involvement and culpability: see Public Prosecutor v Loh Cheok San [2023] 5 SLR 1646 at [50].

Defence’s application under s 123 to s 125 CPC –sufficiency of the charges

Before setting out the parties’ cases, I first address a preliminary objection raised by the Defence on the insufficiency of the 20 charges preferred against the accused.

Prior to the commencement of the trial, the Defence contended that the 20 charges framed against the accused failed to give him sufficient notice of the case that he needed to meet. This related to two aspects: first, what material particulars of the certificates were alleged by the Prosecution to be false; second, how the accused was involved in the alleged conspiracy to give certificates to the foreign workers. In relation to the first issue, the Defence argued that the Prosecution did not specify, for example, whether the certificates were false because the foreign workers did not attend the training as stated in the certificates, did not attend the assessments, or the courses were not conducted by a competent trainer. In relation to the second issue, since the accused was not the director of ASTC, the charges did not specify exactly how he was involved in the alleged agreement.

The Defence thus contended that the charges did not comply with s 123 to s 125 of the CPC, which state as follows:

The Prosecution contended that the charges gave the accused sufficient notice of the case he had to meet. The charges contained the time of the conspiracy, the location where it was conceived and the purpose of the conspiracy. The essence of the falsehood was that each foreign worker had successfully completed the course for the stated period of time, when he had not done so. The charges also made clear that the accused entered into a conspiracy, pursuant to which an act took place. The Prosecution took the position that s 125 of the CPC only required details of the alleged offence to be specified if the accused had not been given sufficient notice of the charge under ss 123 and 124 of the CPC in the first place, which was not the case here.

Having considered the parties’ submissions and the relevant provisions, I was of the view that the charges as framed met the requirements set out in those provisions. I thus did not accept the Defence’s arguments that the charges were insufficiently particularised.

As all the charges were framed in a similar manner, I set out a sample charge (DSC-900915-2023) for ease of reference:

I had set out the key elements of the offences at [19] above. All the elements were stated in the charges. The charges each stated that on a certain day, in Singapore, the accused had engaged in a conspiracy with ASTC, through its director, Shivasanker. The object of the conspiracy was to give a foreign worker a certificate for the purpose of the WSHA, which was false in a material particular. The accused knew that the certificate contained false particulars. The act that took place in pursuance of the conspiracy was that, on a certain date, ASTC gave a particular certificate to the foreign worker for a course, indicating specific training dates. The charges stated the offence with which the accused was charged – under s 53(b) of the WSHA read with s 109 of the Penal Code, as well as the time and place of the alleged offences.

In relation to the first aspect raised by the Defence, in my view, the falsehood was stated with sufficient specificity – that the foreign worker had successfully completed the course in question by attending the training on the dates stipulated in the certificates, when he had not. As to the precise details of how the foreign worker had failed to successfully complete the course, this was a matter of evidence to be adduced through the Prosecution's witnesses during the trial, and subject to cross-examination. These were not matters that needed to be specified in the charges.

In relation to the second issue the Defence raised, I considered the observations of the High Court in Li Weiming v Public Prosecutor [2013] 2 SLR 1227 (“Li Weiming”) to be instructive. In Li Weiming, the accused persons each faced (among others) a charge under s 477A read with s 109 of the Penal Code. The defence brought an application seeking, among other things, an order for further particulars to be provided in the Summary of Facts in the Case for the Prosecution. One of the further particulars sought was the details of the alleged conspiracy between the accused persons. The High Court refused to grant the further particulars sought in this regard. The Summary of Facts was meant to “reinforce the particulars already contained in the charge, and offer further notice and clarity of the case which the Defence is to answer” (Li Weiming at [32]). In this regard, one plank of the High Court’s reasoning was that a distinction had to be drawn between particulars sought which served to clarify and give notice to the accused of the essential ingredients of the offence stated in the charge, and particulars which were not of such a nature (see Li Weiming at [53]). Only the former needed to be disclosed. If the particulars of the alleged conspiracy did not even have to be disclosed in a Summary of Facts in support of the charge – which was intended to be a more substantive document than the charge itself – such details ipso facto did not have to be set out in the charge. Thus, I was of the view that in the present case, details of the alleged conspiracy, including the accused’s role, were matters which did not have to be specified in the charge and could be further adduced during the Prosecution’s case at trial.

In my judgment, every legal condition required by law to constitute the offences charged had been stated (s 123(5) CPC) and the charges also gave details that were reasonably sufficient to give the accused notice of what he was charged with (s 124(1) CPC).

Parties’ cases

I move on to the parties’ cases.

The Prosecution’s case

The Prosecution’s case was primarily based on the evidence of ASTC’s director, Shivasanker (PW7) and six out of the seven foreign workers (PW1-PW6) who were given certificates by ASTC. The Prosecution also relied on two statements, admitted under s 32(1)(j)(iv) of the Evidence Act 1893 (“Evidence Act”), of (a) ASTC’s administrative assistant Gurusamy Latha (“Latha”) and (b) the final foreign worker, Subramanian Pirithivirajan (“Subramanian”).

The evidence of Shivasanker – the director of ASTC

Shivasanker had been the director of ASTC since its incorporation in April 2014, until sometime in October or November 2019. As director, he was responsible for overseeing ASTC's financial matters and overheads, as well as business development.

Sometime in early 2018, Shivasanker and Hossain Mohammad Noor ("Hossain"), a marketing agent from Royal Multi-Skills & Safety Training Pte Ltd ("Royal Multi-Skills"), agreed to have ASTC conduct WSHA courses of shortened durations. The foreign workers who attended these courses were also guaranteed to pass the courses regardless of their competence in the subjects.

Three courses were offered by ASTC, namely the MSEC, SMSEC and WAHW. Foreign workers classified as “basic skilled” (“R2”) could use the certificates obtained from these courses to apply for the Multi-Skilling Scheme run by the Building and Construction Authority (“BCA”) to attain “higher skilled” (“R1”) worker status. Under BCA’s scheme, R2 workers could be upgraded to R1 if they had six years of construction experience in Singapore and completed a total of 120 hours of training in approved workplace safety and health courses. R1 workers could extend their employment period in Singapore (up to 26 years). Employers also paid a lower foreign worker levy for R1 workers as compared to R2 workers (around $300 as compared to $700).

Pursuant to this arrangement, Shivasanker instructed ASTC’s trainers to shorten course durations for multiple cohorts of foreign workers and to ensure that all foreign workers passed the courses provided by ASTC. The latter was achieved by having the trainers provide answers to the foreign workers during the written assessments administered during the courses.

Specifically, Shivasanker testified that each course conducted was of a “very compact duration”, usually within a day. Three courses could therefore be completed within three Sundays. Practical lessons involved little to no hands-on practice by the workers. Answer keys were given to the foreign workers or answers were flashed on PowerPoint slides during the assessments. The courses therefore did not comply with the MOM technical notes.

ASTC employed an administrative assistant in charge of administrative duties. The administrative assistant at ASTC was initially Latha, and later, another person known as Subramaniyam Revathi (“Revathi”). The administrative assistant oversaw duties such as scheduling classes for the training courses, collecting payment, liaising with marketing agents, and printing certificates issued to foreign workers (such as those in Annex G to the SOAF).

When preparing the certificates, Latha filled in the details such as the foreign worker’s name, FIN number, the name of the course, ASTC’s address and the certificate number. The dates of attendance reflected on the certificates were inaccurate. They were doctored by Latha on the accused’s instructions.

Latha obtained the signatures appended at the bottom of the certificates from digital signatures of the training managers stored in the company’s computer system. The signatures were placed on the certificates with their knowledge. Based on Annex G to the SOAF, the signatures on the certificates in the charges in the present case belonged to either Shivasanker or the accused.

ASTC further employed a training manager as well as several freelance associate trainers. A training manager’s primary responsibility was to oversee the conduct of the training at ASTC. The freelance trainers reported to the training manager. At the material time, the training manager also took on other duties such as conducting the training at ASTC, doing headcounts, marking attendance and issuing question papers for the examinations.

Shivasanker testified that he was the training manager at ASTC in July and August 2019. Sometime in August 2019, he handed over the training manager role to the accused. This was because Shivasanker had found a full-time job at another company. At the time of the handover, the accused was already a trainer at ASTC, conducting theory and practical lessons. According to Shivasanker, the accused approached him to take over the business. They met at a coffeeshop in Toh Guan to discuss the matter. The accused stated that he wanted to take over the business as he needed the money for his mother’s medical treatment.

The practices described at [37]-[38] above occurred before the accused took over as training manager, and continued after he took over.

For Shivasanker’s role in the malpractices at ASTC, he faced 37 charges under s 53(b) read with s 48(1) of the WSHA. These were for ASTC giving 14 foreign workers certificates under the WSHA which were false in a material particular, namely, by stating that each foreign worker had successfully completed various courses when the actual period of training was shorter than the requisite training hours stipulated by the MOM. These acts were done while he was a director at ASTC. The Prosecution proceeded on 10 charges. Shivasanker pleaded guilty to the charges on 6 March 2024. He was sentenced on 4 April 2024 to between three months and three months’ and two weeks’ imprisonment on each charge, with four charges to run consecutively, for a global sentence of 12 months’ and six weeks’ imprisonment. The certificate under s 45A of the Evidence Act, the Statement of Facts and the charge sheets for Shivasanker’s case were admitted into evidence and marked as P5.

At the time of his testimony at this trial, Shivasanker had completed serving his sentence for these charges.

The evidence of six foreign workers

The next key plank of the Prosecution’s case was the testimony of six foreign workers named in the charges. Initially, the Prosecution, with the consent of the Defence, used conditioned statements pursuant to s 264 of the CPC as evidence for three of the foreign workers, Rana Juwel (PW1), Hossain Anwar (PW2) and Jagdeep Singh (PW3). Subsequently, the Defence withdrew its consent to the use of conditioned statements. The evidence of the other three foreign workers, Hussain Mohammad Abu (PW4), Manik Mohammad Abdul Baser (PW5) and Yousuf Abu (PW6) were given orally through their evidence-in-chief.

In essence, all the foreign workers described attending compressed courses at ASTC lasting only three to four Sundays, instead of the prescribed durations. Practical sessions were limited. Assessments were conducted in a fraudulent manner: answers were provided to the workers either through the open display of answers (eg, on whiteboards) or the provision of answer sheets with correct responses already indicated. These practices occurred across three courses, namely MSEC, SMSEC and WAHW. Most of the witnesses also positively identified that accused as the trainer who was present during their training courses and/or who played a direct role in providing answers during examinations. The Prosecution submitted that the foreign workers' evidence presented a “compelling and consistent pattern of systemic examination fraud at ASTC… and remarkably similar accounts of fraudulent practices involving the accused", which remained substantially intact despite the Defence's attempts to impeach some witnesses on peripheral details through prior inconsistent statements. I will analyse these in further detail below.

Statements admitted pursuant to s 32(1)(j)(iv) of the Evidence Act

Two of the Prosecution’s witnesses, Latha and Subramanian, left Singapore prior to the commencement of the trial. The Prosecution applied to admit the statements of Latha and Subramanian under s 32(1)(j)iv) of the Evidence Act, which stated:

Two ancillary hearings were conducted to separately determine the admissibility of each of the two statements. The Prosecution called the Investigating Officers (“IOs”) and recording officers of the statements, as well as an interpreter for certain calls made to Subramanian by one of the IOs. The gist of their evidence related to Latha and Subramanian having left Singapore prior to the commencement of the trial, the efforts made by the IOs to contact them and request for them to return to Singapore, and the reasons they provided for refusing to return to Singapore.

At the conclusion of the ancillary hearings, after hearing the evidence of the Prosecution’s witnesses, the Defence ultimately did not object to the Prosecution’s applications to admit the two statements under s 32(1)(j)(iv) of the Evidence Act, but reserved its position on the weight to be attached to these statements. The Defence however clarified that it did not consent to the admission of the statements under s 32(1)(k) of the same Act,

I therefore considered whether the statements should be admitted pursuant to s 32(1)(j)(iv) of the Evidence Act. I decided that they should.

Both Latha and Subramanian were out of jurisdiction, in India. Latha left Singapore on 10 March 2024. Subramanian left Singapore on 25 April 2023. There was no evidence they ever returned to Singapore. As such, they could not be compelled, eg, by way of subpoena, to attend the proceedings in Singapore.

Various efforts were made by the IOs to contact and inform them of the trial dates and request for them to return to Singapore to give evidence, but they refused. In relation to Latha, the IO sent emails and a registered letter to her overseas address in Tamil Nadu, India to ask her to return to Singapore for the trial. In relation to Subramanian, the IO attempted to call his wife in India, and sent an overseas registered letter in Tamil to his address in Tamil Nadu. He also had a conversation with Subramanian over WhatsApp. The IO further called Subramanian on several occasions with the assistance of a Tamil interpreter, requesting him to return to Singapore to testify at the trial.

Latha refused to return to Singapore to testify at the trial. She said that she was in the midst of a divorce and also had health concerns. She was also the sole caregiver to her mother. She further declined to testify by video-conferencing, stating that she was not in good state of mind and going through a challenging period in her life emotionally and physically, having to travel for medical checkups, manage personal matters and care for her mother who was unwell.

Subramanian was similarly unwilling to return to Singapore or provide testimony via video conferencing. He stated that he was already working in India and he could not remember much about the incident.

Having considered the evidence, I found that Latha and Subramanian were competent but not compellable to give evidence and refused to do so. I did not find any reason to exclude the statement in the interests of justice pursuant to s 32(3) of the Evidence Act, on grounds that the statements were not necessary because they duplicated other evidence in the case, where they would delay proceedings, where they would distract, confuse or mislead, where the evidence was unreliable, or where the prejudicial effect of the statements outweighed their probative value: Gimpex Ltd v Unity Holdings Business Ltd and others and another appeal [2015] 2 SLR 686 at [106]. The Defence also did not make such a submission. I thus admitted both statements into evidence pursuant to s 32(1)(j)(iv) of the Evidence Act. I will assess the weight to be given to these statements in the next section of my analysis when I explain the reasons for my decision.

(1) The evidence of Latha – the administrative assistant of ASTC (AH1-P6)

Latha stated that she was employed as an administrative assistant at ASTC from March 2016 to 30 September 2019. Her responsibilities included registering foreign workers, scheduling classes, printing attendance sheets, preparing courseware and assessment papers, uploading test results, printing certificates and training cards, collecting payments from foreign workers as well as other administrative duties.

Sometime in late 2017 to early 2018, the director of ASTC, Shivasanker, informed her that Hossain, a marketing agent from Royal Multi-Skills approached him with regards to marketing the WSHA courses under ASTC. Hossain suggested to Shivasanker that the former could refer foreign workers to ASTC, but on his specific terms. ASTC was to offer the R1 package consisting of MSEC, SMSEC and WAHW courses, so that the workers could qualify for the multi-skilled lower levy scheme administered by the BCA. ASTC was to conduct these courses in four to five Sundays (and later three Sundays) instead of the stipulated full duration of 120 hours. ASTC was also to commit that all workers would be able to pass the courses. She believed that Shivasanker agreed to the scheme because of his serious financial difficulties at that time. Shivasanker then instructed her and the training managers from 2018 to 2019 to conduct courses with shortened durations as well as to ensure that the foreign workers passed these courses.

Sometime in August 2019, Shivasanker informed that he wished to cease ASTC’s operations. However, the accused would take over the running of ASTC from him. She would assist the accused “in the production of doctored attendance sheets, assessment records followed by the printing of certificates”.

The accused instructed her to print out excess answer keys for him to distribute to the workers during the theory test. Latha personally handed over the answer sheets with answer keys to the accused with the intention of helping the workers passed the assessment through copying the answers. She also sometimes provided answer keys to the trainers or the workers themselves. This was again done to ensure the workers passed the courses.

As for digital signatures on the certificates, she stated that the signatures of Shivasanker and the other training managers were scanned into the computer when they were under the employment of ASTC. This included the accused’s signature. Latha used these signatures on the certificates with full knowledge that the named foreigners did not attend the full duration of the courses and did not attend the course dates stated on their certificates but were issued the certificates and training cards. The training managers were also fully aware that their signatures were being used by ASTC to create these documents.

ASTC continued to operate the same way from August to September 2019. The certificates were forged in the sense that the attendance records were fabricated, workers signed on doctored attendance sheets, answers were provided to workers during assessment, and certificates were printed for workers who did not complete the courses.

Latha affirmed that 37 certificates shown to her, including the 20 in the charges against the accused, were fabricated. Workers did not attend the full duration of the courses, did not attend the course dates reflected on the certificates but were issued with certificates.

(2) The evidence of Subramanian – the seventh foreign worker (AH2-P1)

Subramanian stated that he attended three courses at ASTC over four consecutive Sundays from 11 August 2019 to 1 September 2019, on the recommendation of an agent he met at Desker Road. He did so to qualify for the R1 higher-skilled worker status.

On the first Sunday (11 August 2019), he arrived at ASTC premises at 8am. An Indian trainer talked about general construction safety with slides and a video presentation. There were no practical lessons. The course ended at 4.30pm.

On the second Sunday (18 August 2019), he again reported to ASTC at 8am. A second Indian trainer brought them to look at a metal scaffold already erected in the training centre, showed them how to work safely while working at heights, how to wear a safety harness and how to anchor it. There was no practical session on how to erect and dismantle a metal scaffold. A written test was conducted after lunch. The course ended at 4.30pm.

On the third Sunday (25 August 2019), he went to ASTC again at 8am. A third Indian trainer talked about general safety in construction sites, scaffold and work at heights using slides and videos. After lunch, he conducted a written test. Subramanian asked the trainer when he was not sure about questions on the assessment paper. He was dismissed at 5pm.

On the fourth Sunday (1 September 2019), the third trainer started the class at about 10.30am. He went through general safety matters at a construction site. No practical lessons were conducted. A written test was conducted in afternoon. The trainer then told the class that they had all completed the required courses for the R1 package and could collect their certificates from the agent that recommended them to ASTC. He was dismissed at 5pm.

Subramanian eventually collected three certificates and three training cards from the agent.

When shown a series of photographs, Subramanian identified the accused as the trainer present on all four Sundays and the trainer on the third and fourth Sundays.

The Defence’s case

The Defence’s case could be divided into two parts. The first was the accused’s version of events in relation to his conduct of training and examinations at ASTC, which was diametrically opposed to the evidence of the Prosecution’s witnesses. The accused testified that he conducted training at ASTC in accordance with the MOM technical notes. He also maintained that he never took over as training manager at ASTC and never engaged in the conspiracy with ASTC through Shivasanker. The second part of the Defence’s case was a critique of the Prosecution’s case, in particular the allegedly inconsistent evidence of the six foreign workers who testified in Court. The Defence further submitted that minimal weight should be accorded to the statements of Latha and Subramanian as they were untested in cross-examination.

The evidence of the accused

The accused testified that sometime around 2016 to 2017, he first started working at ASTC by conducting training for MSEC courses. He left the centre after a few months.

Sometime at the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019, Shivasanker called the accused and asked him to do part time training at ASTC. The accused agreed. He became a trainer at ASTC a few times a month. As a trainer, he conducted theory lessons, practical lessons and invigilated examinations.

His theory lessons followed the slides given by the “course developer”. He taught the foreign workers in a way that they could understand. For practical lessons, he followed the training guidelines and brought the workers through slides such as those showing how a scaffold looked like. He then brought the workers to areas at ASTC which were used for practical training. He explained to them the different components of a scaffold, showed them how to erect a scaffold and allowed the workers to erect the scaffold.

He only invigilated examinations about four to five times because of a “high failure rate” in his classes. He said this was because he could tell that the foreign workers he taught did not understand the contents of the examinations, and were therefore unable to do the examinations. He claimed that because of these high failure rates, he was thereafter confined to teaching classes and did not conduct any more invigilation. In the examinations that he did invigilate, he never gave any answers to the foreign workers.

Shivasanker approached him sometime in September or October 2019 and asked if he wanted to take over the role as training manager at ASTC. He declined as he already had a full-time job. Shivasanker then promised that this role would only be on a part-time basis. He offered to pay the accused about $2,000 to $2,300 for the role. The accused asked for a Letter of Appointment (“LOA”) to be issued. When Latha gave him a copy of the LOA, he realised that it described a full-time position. As such, he declined the role. He had also never given permission for ASTC to use his signature on the certificates.

At around this time, he started to notice suspicious documents such as attendance sheets left at ASTC’s office printer. The attendance sheets showed that the foreign workers signed their attendance for different dates at the same time. He then took some photographs of the attendance sheets.

At the same time, he did not receive clarity from Shivasanker about his training manager role. To his mind, he had never received a proper LOA and thus never became the training manager of ASTC.

He resigned from ASTC on 17 November 2019. When he resigned, he took with him an envelope containing 12 certificates and nine training cards. This was because he realised that the foreign workers listed in these certificates and cards did not attend the requisite number of training hours. and that the certificates bore his signature without his consent.

The Defence thus argued that the accused’s abrupt resignation, taking the certificates and training cards with him, demonstrated that he was neither apprised of the common design of the fraudulent scheme, nor did he agree to being a party to this alleged conspiracy. He was troubled by the developments which took place when he gradually discovered irregularities in the manner in which ASTC ran its operations.

Critique of the six foreign workers’ evidence

A substantial portion of the Defence’s case was that the evidence of the six foreign workers was inconsistent as between their own statements (several of which were admitted to impeach their credibility) and their testimony in court, as well as when compared to the evidence of other foreign workers. As such, their evidence was unreliable and fell below the threshold to sustain a conviction. I briefly summarise the chief concerns of the Defence in relation to each foreign worker.

In relation to Rana Juwel (PW1), the following issues were highlighted:

(a) Rana Juwel testified that the accused conducted an MSEC examination in the afternoon of 25 August 2019. However, another witness, Yousuf Abu (PW6), stated that the accused was teaching an MSEC class the entire day.

(b) ICA records showed that the accused departed Woodlands checkpoint at 4.36pm on 25 August 2019. When confronted with this, Rana Juwel became unsure if the accused conducted the MSEC examination that afternoon.

(c) During cross-examination, Rana Juwel became uncertain of his recollection that Mohan was trainer involved in the conduct of the examination on 1 September 2019. The Defence argued that he only identified the accused as the trainer in his statement because the accused was the only familiar face in the photographs shown to him. The Defence sought to impeach his credit based on his previous statement.

The Defence pointed out two main issues with the evidence of Hossain Anwar (PW2):

(a) He provided differing accounts between his conditioned statement and cross-examination as to whether it was the accused and another Indian trainer, or only the accused, who conducted the lessons on 15 September 2019.

(b) He was uncertain about who gave out the answer sheets to the examination on 22 September 2019 and could not remember if the accused was present during conduct of SMSEC examination.

In relation to Jagdeep Singh (PW3), the Defence drew attention to the following areas of concern:

(a) He testified that on 13 October 2019, the accused taught a class until 3pm. This was inconsistent with the evidence of Manik Mohammad Abdul Baser (PW5) who said that the accused was conducting a WAHW examination that afternoon.

(b) In his conditioned statement, he stated that the accused conducted an examination and provided answers on 20 October 2019, but ICA records indicated that the accused left Woodlands Checkpoint at 4pm. When confronted, he claimed that he was not sure about this. When the Defence applied to impeach and substitute his evidence with his previous inconsistent statement, where he had stated that it was another trainer from the first Sunday (not the accused) who had conducted the examination, he said that the statement was more contemporaneous and was thus more accurate.

For Hussain Mohammad Abu (PW4), the Defence highlighted the following issues:

(a) He could not remember if the MSEC examinations contained multiple-choice or short-answer questions.

(b) He testified that on 18 August 2019, the accused conducted the examination for WAHW, but this was contradicted by Rana Juwel (PW1) who said he was conducting MSEC lessons in the afternoon.

The Defence pointed out the following issues in relation to the evidence of Manik Mohammad Abdul Baser (PW5):

(a) In his statement, he said that the accused was one of the trainers at ASTC on all four Sundays. During his examination-in-chief, he initially stated that he was unable to identify the trainer at all. Subsequently, he was able to identify the accused as the trainer for all four days. During cross-examination and re-examination, he vacillated in his positions as to whether the accused was in class, whether he was there during the examinations, and whether he played any role in the examinations. The Defence applied to impeach his credit using his prior inconsistent statement regarding the issue of whether the accused was present at ASTC on the four days in question.

(b) His evidence that the accused conducted the examination on 13 October 2019 was contradicted by Jagdeep Singh (PW3)’s evidence that the accused was teaching theory lessons related to scaffold erection until 3pm that afternoon.

Finally, the following issues were raised in relation to the evidence of Yousuf Abu (PW6):

(a) He testified that on 25 August 2019, the accused conducted MSEC classes the whole day, but this was contradicted by Rana Juwel (PW1) who said the accused invigilated the MSEC examination that day.

(b) He stated that the accused conducted the MSEC examination in the afternoon of 1 September 2019, but Rana Juwel (PW1) said that the accused was conducting the SMSEC and WAHW examinations that day.

(c) He stated that the accused taught lessons in the morning of 15 September 2019 and conducted an examination in the afternoon, but this was contradicted by Hossain Anwar (PW2) who testified that the accused taught MSEC theory lessons the whole day.

(d) In his oral testimony in court, he testified that on 22 September 2019, the accused assisted the foreign workers to cheat during the examinations by telling them the answers to the examination questions. However, in his statement, he said that he completed the examination without any assistance. He confirmed under cross-examination and re-examination that the version in his statement was correct as it was more contemporaneous with the actual event. The Defence applied to impeach and substitute Yousuf Abu’s evidence in court with his statement in relation to whether he received help on the examination on 22 September 2019.

Assessed holistically, the Defence argued that there was no justifiable basis to prefer one foreign worker’s evidence over another, and none of their evidence was corroborated by anything else. This meant that there were no grounds for drawing any inference of a conspiracy.

Minimal weight should be given to the statements admitted under s 32(1)(j)(iv) of the Evidence Act

Finally, the Defence argued that minimal weight should be accorded to Latha and Subramanian’s statements as these were untested by cross-examination.

The Court’s decision on conviction

After carefully considering the evidence adduced at trial, I found that the Prosecution had proven every element of the charges against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. I explain.

The accused abetted by engaging in a conspiracy with ASTC through Shivasanker

In relation to the first element, the question was essentially whether there was an agreement between the accused and ASTC (through Shivasanker). I was satisfied that there was such an agreement, evidenced by the accused’s conduct indicating the pursuit of a common object.

Shivasanker’s evidence

I first considered the evidence of Shivasanker, whose testimony I found to be unshaken under cross-examination.

Following Shivasanker’s agreement with Hossain, the marketing agent from Royal Multi-Skills, the courses conducted by ASTC were of compact durations and shortened in length. No practical training was conducted, and answers were given to foreign workers during examinations. They therefore did not comply with the course training requirements under the MOM technical notes.

This non-compliant manner of conducting courses was communicated by Shivasanker to all trainers at ASTC (including the accused), who were instructed to shorten the duration of the courses for multiple cohorts of foreign workers and to ensure all foreign workers passed the courses under ASTC. The latter was achieved by having the trainers provide answers to the foreign workers during the written assessments administered during the course.

Specifically, Shivasanker testified that the accused was initially a trainer at ASTC who conducted the training and examinations. He knew the modus operandi at the training centre.

Sometime around August 2019, Shivasanker was considering shutting down ASTC. The accused agreed to take over as training manager and, in doing so, continued the same practices in pursuit of the same common object. These practices were also consistent with the actual practices taking place at that time, as testified by the foreign workers named in the charges. I will analyse this further later.

Finally, the accused’s name was also listed, and his signature and designation as training manager were reflected, in seven out of the 20 certificates listed in the charges. Shivasanker testified that the digital signatures of training managers were stored in ASTC’s computer system. Their signatures would be extracted from the system and placed on the certificate to be issued before printing. He also stated that the accused knew that the signatures would be used for the certificates. The accused thus allowed his signatures to be utilised on such certificates, even though he was aware of the fraudulent manner of training conducted at ASTC.

Latha’s evidence corroborated Shivasanker’s evidence

As earlier explained, while an ancillary hearing was conducted on the admissibility of Latha’s statement under s 32(1)(j)(iv) of the Evidence Act, it was eventually admitted without objection from the Defence.

I was cognisant that Latha was not available for cross-examination. Despite that, I did not agree with the Defence that Latha’s statement was “self-serving” and to be given no weight at all. Latha candidly admitted her roles in ASTC’s non-compliant courses and examinations and did not seek to “push the blame” to Shivasanker and the accused. Instead, I found her evidence to broadly corroborate Shivasanker’s in material respects. I relied on her evidence not as a primary source, but as corroboration of key planks of Shivasanker’s testimony.

The first point of corroboration was Latha’s confirmation that the accused took over the running of ASTC from Shivasanker and became the training manager. She also confirmed that the running of courses and assessments at ASTC remained the same under the accused – specifically, she “continued to operate in the same manner even after Shivasanker handed over the running of ASTC to [the accused]” and “still assist[ed] [the accused] in the production of doctored attendance sheets, assessment records followed by printing of certificates”. She also confirmed that she passed answer sheets with answer keys to the accused with the intention of helping workers to pass during assessment through copying.

I pause to address a point of objection raised by the Defence. The Defence highlighted that Latha had indicated in her statement that the accused took over as training manager from February 2019 until October/November 2019. This was inconsistent with Shivasanker’s evidence that the accused only became training manager in August 2019. I accepted that there was an apparent incongruence on the face of Latha’s statement. However, Latha went on to elaborate that the accused in fact only took over the running of ASTC from Shivasanker in August 2019 when Shivasanker wanted to cease ASTC’s operations, and stated the steps she took to assist the accused to further the malpractices from that time onwards. This was consistent with Shivasanker’s account. In any event, even if there was an inconsistency, it was not material. This was because by the time of the earliest charges, which were in late July to early August 2019, the accused would have been the training manager of ASTC on either version of events. The crux of the matter was that he had carried on the practice of conducting non-compliant courses and examinations exactly the way that Shivasanker had previously instructed.

The second point in which Latha’s evidence corroborated Shivasanker’s was her evidence that the accused’s signature was scanned into ASTC’s office computer at the point of employment, and that all training managers were fully aware that their signatures were used by ASTC in the creation of the certificates for the foreign workers. This again reinforced the accused’s participation in the common object of giving foreign workers the signed certificates to falsely certify their completion of the courses.

The Defence’s arguments could not be accepted

I turn to address the Defence’s main arguments against the finding of an agreement, which I understood to broadly be three points:

(a) First, the accused was never part of any agreement because he had always conducted classes which were compliant with the MOM technical notes and never assisted any of the foreign workers to cheat in the assessments.

(b) Second, the accused never took over as training manager of ASTC. The necessary implication was that he could not have agreed to carry on the scheme that Shivasanker was involved in. He asserted that he did not want the position because he already had a full-time job. He thus could not have performed the responsibilities of a training manager. Negotiations for this position never came to fruition because he never received an LOA from the company. Since he was never the training manager, his signatures that appeared on the certificates were used without his knowledge and consent.

(c) Third, any alleged agreement was inconsistent with the accused’s conduct of abruptly resigning and taking with him what he believed to be suspicious documents – namely, the certificates and training cards.

The first argument was against the weight of the evidence given by Shivasanker, corroborated by Latha, as well as the seven foreign workers involved in the charges. Their evidence revealed a systemic practice in ASTC by all trainers, including the accused. I found the accused’s assertions that he had essentially bucked the trend at ASTC and conducted the courses in accordance with the MOM technical notes to be self-serving and implausible. I further found his evidence in this regard to be vague and lacking in pertinent details. My overall impression of his evidence was that he was eager to use the correct descriptors to escape from liability. For example, he said that he would teach the foreign workers using slides in accordance with what was given by the “course developer” and in a way that the workers would understand. However, having heard his evidence, I still did not understand exactly how the courses were conducted, and how the contents of such courses dovetailed with the MOM technical notes. In addition, if he had in fact conducted such courses to the level of detail required, he was unable to explain why the evidence from the foreign workers was that the courses were of compact durations, which would not have allowed him sufficient time to complete such courses in full. His claim that he had never assisted the foreign workers in their assessments was again contrary to the pervasive practices of ASTC as testified by the rest of the Prosecution’s witnesses.

As for the second argument, it was clear from Shivasanker’s testimony and Latha’s corroborative evidence that the accused did become ASTC’s training manager and continued to carry out the conspiracy and the modus operandi of ASTC. They were also clear that his signature was taken with his consent and stored in the company’s computer system, and used on the certificates with his knowledge when he was the training manager.

More significantly, the accused’s claim that he was never the training manager of ASTC was directly contradicted by two sources originating from him.

First, it plainly flew in the face of a message that the accused sent to Shivasanker to resign from ASTC. In that message, the accused stated:

In his examination-in-chief, the accused was asked why he referred to himself as the training manager. He claimed that what he was actually trying to say was that he did not want to be training manager as he suspected that something was “not right”.

During cross-examination, the Prosecution put to the accused that he meant exactly what appeared on the face of the message, ie, that he was the training manager and he was prepared to stay on as training manager until a new training manager took over from him. The accused disagreed, stating that he was “actually lying” and what he meant was that he did not want to be part of ASTC and lied to avoid trouble.

In closing submissions, the Defence contended that the accused was afraid of Shivasanker, after being told by a former training manager at ASTC that Shivasanker was “not a nice person”. He had thus merely adopted a formal and courteous tone in his resignation message. The message was also attributable to his lack of proficiency in the English language.

I found the accused’s “feeble attempt” to dissociate from the message to be unbelievable. I did not accept the Defence’s argument that the accused was impeded by his lack of grasp of the English language or his alleged fear of Shivasanker. These defied what was evidently a very clear, carefully crafted and well-composed message. It not only confirmed that he was the current training manager at ASTC, but that he would be handing over his duties to the new training manager.

Second, it contradicted the accused’s statement dated 13 September 2021, admitted without any challenge to voluntariness or accuracy. In the statement, the accused stated unequivocally that “I was the training manager from September to mid-October 2019” [emphasis added]. Under cross-examination on this portion of the statement, the accused’s explanation was that he meant that he was still in the process of negotiating the position of training manager. Again, this did not make any sense in light of the clear admission in his statement that he was already the training manager at ASTC during the material period.

As for the contention that the accused would not have had the time to perform his role as a training manager while holding a full-time job, I did not find this to be persuasive either. The argument presupposed that the accused’s role as a training manager required large investments in time and energy which he did not have, and which differed significantly from his previous role as a trainer at ASTC. But the evidence was otherwise. The accused simply agreed to continue a well-entrenched and well-oiled practice at ASTC – practices which he was already perpetrating as a trainer of ASTC. In other words, it did not require any additional expenditure of time or energy beyond what he had already been doing all along. As for the substantial administrative responsibilities, such as the registration of foreign workers, scheduling of classes, preparation of assessment papers and printing of certificates, these were carried out by the administrative staff, Latha, followed by Revathi, and not the accused.

The upshot of the above was that the accused did take over as training manager at ASTC. As training manager, he continued to perpetrate the malpractices at ASTC, in pursuance of the conspiracy.

As for the third argument, I found that the accused’s tepid response upon his alleged discovery of serious malpractices at ASTC fell short of what the situation demanded. As such, I did not accept that these acts demonstrated his lack of involvement in the conspiracy. The accused merely took some photographs of attendance sheets and removed a few certificates and training cards. I agreed with the Prosecution that it was incomprehensible that the accused did not himself escalate the matter to the police or the MOM. This was especially so considering that on his version of events, (a) he was entirely uninvolved in conducting non-compliant courses or helping workers cheat during examinations, so he would not have been personally liable if he reported the malpractices to the authorities; (b) his name and signatures appeared as training manager on certificates for the non-compliant courses, thereby falsely implicating him; and (c) he accepted that he had just uncovered a very serious offence.

Even if he did not escalate the matter to the authorities, he should have at the very least ceased all involvement at ASTC to minimise his exposure to potential liability. Yet, he did the exact opposite: he offered to stay on as training manager until a new training manager was appointed, and to continue to conduct trainings on Friday nights and Sundays at ASTC.

In light of the foregoing, I was satisfied that the accused, from July to November 2019, did engage in a conspiracy by agreeing with ASTC (through Shivasanker) to conduct the courses and examinations in the fraudulent manner described.

The object of the conspiracy was to give each foreign worker a certificate for the purpose of the WSHA

The entire object of the conspiracy was to certify the workers as “higher skilled” R1 workers whose employers could pay lower levies.

The dispute was whether the accused was involved in the conspiracy, which I had explained in the preceding section.

Pursuant to the conspiracy, an act took place, namely, ASTC gave each foreign worker a certificate falsely stating that he had successfully completed the course in question

In relation to the third element, it was not disputed that ASTC gave certificates to the foreign workers. These certificates were admitted by consent as Annex G to the SOAF.

The dispute was whether this was done pursuant to a conspiracy of which the accused was a party. I had already explained why this was the case in my analysis of the first element.

Each certificate was false in a material particular

I turn to the fourth element. I found that the certificates issued were false in a material particular, namely, that the workers did not successfully complete the courses because they attended shortened duration of courses, did not cover the content required by the MOM technical notes (including practical lessons), and were provided assistance during their assessments.

Shivasanker and Latha were both consistent that the certificates were fabricated from ASTC’s office computer, on Shivsanker’s, followed by the accused’s instructions after he took over as training manager. The courses were of significantly shortened durations, lacked practical components, and the foreign workers received assistance during examinations. ASTC also created attendance sheets which falsely indicated the dates that the foreign workers had attended the courses, even though they did not in fact attend courses on that day.

I had already assessed the accused's defence at [105] and [116]. His defence was that, as a trainer at ASTC, he conducted all training and assessments in accordance with the MOM technical notes and never provided answers to the foreign workers. This resulted in high failure rates in the examinations he invigilated, to the extent that the company did not want him to conduct further invigilation. He also argued that he resigned when he began to suspect that ASTC was involved in malpractices, having noticed pre-signed attendance sheets on the office printer. His evidence went against the grain of the evidence in relation to the practices at ASTC not only of Shivasanker and Latha, but also the foreign workers themselves.

Assessment of the foreign workers’ evidence

In this section, I will focus on examining the Defence’s argument that the foreign workers’ evidence should not be believed because there were material inconsistencies either between their own statements to MOM (some of which were admitted for the purpose of impeachment) and their evidence in court, or externally when compared with the evidence of other foreign workers.

Having considered the Defence’s arguments at [83] to [88] above, I considered that the identified issues could be classified into three broad categories:

(a) The first category pertained to inconsistencies about the accused’s role on a specific date and time when compared to the testimony of other foreign workers and ICA’s objective travel records ([83(a)], [83(b)], [85(a)], [85(b)], [86(b)], [87(b)] and [88(a)]–[88(c)]). These related to arguments that the witness stated that the accused was conducting a certain class or examination at a particular date and time period, when ICA records indicated that he had left Singapore within that time period, or another foreign worker had testified that he was conducting a different class or examination.

(b) The second category concerned the alleged prevarications or uncertainties in the foreign workers’ identification of the accused and his specific role ([83(c)], [84(a)], [84(b)] and [87(a)]).

(c) The final category related to inconsistences about the format of the examinations and the precise manner in which courses and examinations were conducted by the accused ([86(a)] and [88(d))]).

The Defence sought to impeach the credit of Rana Juwel (PW1) and Manik Mohammad Abdul Baser (PW5) under s 157(c) of the Evidence Act:

The Defence also applied to impeach the credit of PW3 (Jagdeep Singh) and PW6 (Yousuf Abu) under s 147(3) of the Evidence Act and substitute their previous inconsistent statement as evidence:

To impeach a witness’ credit was to disparage or undermine his character and moral reliability and worth. The purpose of the impeachment was to undermine his credibility by showing that his testimony in court should not be believed because he was of such a character and moral make-up that he was one who was incapable of speaking the whole truth under oath and should not be relied on: Kwang Boon Keong Peter v Public Prosecutor [1998] 2 SLR(R) 211 (“Kwang Boon Keong Peter”) at [19].

At the outset, I accepted that there were differences across the witnesses’ testimonies of the accused’s specific role on particular days of each course. However, I did not find their credit to be impeached under s 157(c) of the Evidence Act. After considering the explanations the witnesses gave for their inconsistencies, it was apparent to me that the inconsistencies could be attributed to the substantial passage of time – about six years – between the offences and the trial. The foreign workers were asked to remember dates, details and specific roles of the accused at those dates and times. Adequate allowance must be accorded for the human fallibility in retention and recollection (see Public Prosecutor v Singh Kalpanath [1995] 3 SLR(R) 158 at [60]). Such inevitable limitations should not be taken as testament to the witnesses’ untruthfulness under oath. When referred back to their previous statements, the witnesses largely agreed that their statements were more accurate because they were taken more contemporaneously with the events in 2019.

As for the Defence’s critique that the foreign workers were unable to remember the format of a specific examination (see eg [86(a)] above), this was essentially an “inability to recall isolated particulars related to minutiae” which could not be reasonably expected even of honest witnesses (see Ong Bee Nah v Won Siew Wan (Yong Tian Choy, third party) [2005] 2 SLR(R) 455 at [15]).

Even if I had found that the witnesses’ credit had been impeached and given little weight to the inconsistent parts of their evidence, this did not require me to disregard the entirety of their evidence: Kwang Boon Keong Peter at [24].

Furthermore, I was prepared to allow the substitution of the relevant portions of Jagdeep Singh (PW3) and Yousuf Abu (PW6)’s previous inconsistent statements and disregard their more incriminating oral testimony. But this also did not detract from the main planks of their evidence which implicated the accused.

The crux of the witnesses’ evidence as to the non-compliant manner in which the courses were conducted at ASTC (ie compressed courses, no practical lessons and being provided answers for examinations) remained unchallenged. It reflected a systemic practice present at ASTC across the foreign workers and across the different courses. Most of the witnesses also recognised the accused as the trainer and/or examiner, and described the specific role he played during each class or examination. These were consistent with the evidence of Shivasanker, Latha and Subramanian.

In addition, even if the accused was not involved in every act in the malpractice, eg, he did not conduct a certain class or examination, this was not fatal to the Prosecution’s case. Where he acted together with other persons in pursuance of a common criminal object, every act done in furtherance of this object by his co-conspirator, ASTC would be taken, in law, to be done by all. It was thus not necessary for the accused to personally have been involved in every element of the fraudulent practices.

The accused knew that each certificate was false in a material particular

Given my conclusion in the first section of the analysis that the accused was a party to the conspiracy to conduct lessons and examinations for the various courses in a non-compliant manner, it followed that the accused must have known that the certificates issued were false in a material particular.

Overall analysis of the Prosecution’s and Defence’s cases

Overall, I found that the broad tenets of all the Prosecution’s witnesses were coherent and consistent as to the systemic fraudulent practices at ASTC across its various courses and across the named foreign workers.

On the other hand, every aspect of the accused’s evidence was directly contradicted by each of the Prosecution’s witnesses. The accused’s response was broadly that they had all lied in court and/or in their statements and conspired to frame him for the offences. He even speculated that the foreign workers had been coached to answer in a certain manner, perhaps by Shivasanker. In my assessment, there was no reason for any of them to lie, much less collude with one another to give false evidence and perjure themselves in court. Shivasanker, in particular, had already pleaded guilty, had been sentenced and had finished serving his sentence in relation to his involvement in the offences by the time he testified at trial. I did not find that there was any reason for him to fabricate his evidence in court.

I thus found that the Prosecution had proven the 20 charges against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, and convicted the accused of the charges accordingly.

Sentence

I now turn to the appropriate sentence to be imposed.

Prescribed punishment

Each of the charges under s 53(b) of the WSHA read with s 109 of the Penal Code was punishable with a fine not exceeding $5,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both.

Antecedents

The accused was traced for unrelated offences, which the Prosecution did not rely on in their sentencing submissions.

Parties’ submissions on sentence

The Prosecution’s submissions

The Prosecution submitted for the following alternative individual sentences:

(a) Three and a half months’ imprisonment per charge, if the Court were to order five sentences to run consecutively.

(b) Four months’ imprisonment per charge, if the Court were to order four sentences to run consecutively.

The global sentence sought was between 16 and 17½ months’ imprisonment.

The Prosecution submitted that general deterrence was the key sentencing consideration:

(a) The issuance of false certificates posed a risk to public safety, as the certificates allowed unqualified foreign workers to be appointed to carry out metal scaffold erection, supervision of metal scaffold erection, and work at heights, thereby increasing the risk of accidents.

(b) In addition, the offences perpetrated amounted to a fraud against the MOM. First, it frustrated the MOM’s ability to ensure the health and safety of workers by fraudulently representing that foreign workers were qualified to carry out their tasks. Second, the foreign workers were improperly certified to qualify as R1 multi-skilled workers, for which their employers could pay lower levies, thereby deliberately undermining the foreign worker levy scheme.

(c) The offence was a group offence, carried out by the accused, Shivasanker, Latha, Revathi and others.

(d) The offences were difficult to detect.

Specific deterrence was also a relevant sentencing consideration as the offences were premeditated. The accused agreed to take over ASTC despite knowing the full extent of the systemic fraudulent practices. The offences also spanned several months from July to November 2019.

The Prosecution acknowledged that there was no High Court case authority on sentencing offences under s 53(b) of the WSHA. It took reference from the District Court’s decision in Public Prosecutor v Shivasanker S [2024] SGDC 822 (“Shivasanker”), which concerned Shivasanker’s case in which he had pleaded guilty. The District Judge (“DJ”) in that case considered the following to be relevant offence-specific factors (at [45]):

(a) whether the offence was pre-meditated or planned, or whether it was simply spontaneous;

(b) whether active, deliberate or sophisticated steps were taken by the offender to bolster the deception and boost the chances of hoodwinking the public authorities;

(c) whether the offender obtained gains (financial or otherwise) from the commission of the offence;

(d) the specific role played by the offender and, relatedly, the number of people involved in the offence;

(e) the motive of the offender in issuing the false certificate;

(f) whether a transnational element was present and/or whether the offence was committed as part of a criminal syndicate’s operations;

(g) the nature of the offending conduct;

(h) the period of wrongful conduct and the number of falsehoods manufactured; and

(i) the consequences, if any, of the falsehood.

In the present case:

(a) The offences were premeditated. The accused was a training manager at ASTC and engaged in a conspiracy with Shivasanker to conduct fraudulent courses and deliberately provide answers during examinations. He also allowed his signature to be used on certificates. This was not a momentary lapse but a coordinated pattern of conduct spanning several months from July to November 2019, involving multiple courses and numerous foreign workers.

(b) The accused took active and deliberate steps to facilitate the deception, such as systematically announcing correct answers to classes, distributing pre-marked answer sheets with correct responses, displaying answers on whiteboards during examinations and providing separate answer scripts.

(c) The accused obtained financial gains from the conspiracy such as salary payments and referral fees.

(d) The accused played a central coordinating role in the conspiracy, working in concert with Shivasanker, administrative staff and other trainers.

(e) The accused’s motive was financial gain to maintain ASTC’s client base and to continue receiving his salary and referral fees.

(f) The nature of the conduct was systematic examination fraud and a coordinated scheme to bypass proper training requirements.

(g) The wrongful conduct spanned four to five months from July to November 2019 and involved 20 false certificates across three courses.

(h) The consequences were potentially serious as the certificates issued related to workplace safety training for construction workers. While no specific workplace accidents were attributed to the fraudulent training, this could have endangered workers and compromised Singapore’s workplace safety standards.

The Prosecution pegged the accused’s culpability as high and the potential harm of the offence as high, leading to a starting sentence at the middle of the sentencing range of between three and a half to four months’ imprisonment.

The Prosecution compared the present case to the sentence imposed in Shivasanker, In Shivasanker, the DJ imposed sentences of between three months’ and three months’ and two weeks’ imprisonment per charge. The sentences in four of the 10 proceeded charges were ordered to run consecutively, for a total sentence of 12 months’ and six weeks’ imprisonment. Another 27 charges were taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.

Compared to Shivasanker, the accused had claimed trial and was therefore not entitled to the discount accorded for pleading guilty. He was also convicted of 20 charges, which was significantly higher than the number of charges in Shivasanker.

In oral submissions, the Prosecution further contended that the accused’s culpability was higher than that of Shivasanker. It argued that the evidence of the Prosecution’s witnesses all pointed to the accused as the “prime mover of the entire scheme” whereas Shivasanker’s role stopped after he handed over the running of ASTC to the accused. An uplift to Shivasanker’s individual sentence of three months’ to three months’ and two weeks’ imprisonment per charge was therefore warranted in the present case.

The Prosecution submitted that four or five of the sentences should run consecutively because the accused had committed 20 offences and there was a clear and pressing public interest concern to deter the type of conduct in the offences.

The global sentence sought was thus 16 to 17½ months’ imprisonment.

The Defence’s submissions

The Defence submitted for an individual sentence of two months’ imprisonment per charge, and for seven of the 20 charges to run consecutively (one charge for each foreign worker). This would result in a global sentence of 14 months’ imprisonment. At the last step, the Defence proposed a further reduction on account of totality to 12 months’ imprisonment.

In calibrating the individual sentence, the Defence similarly relied on the factors identified by the DJ in Shivasanker:

(a) While there was some element of premeditation, this was merely a manifestation of the basic element of agreement which underpinned the conspiracy and should be treated as a neutral factor. By contrast, in Shivasanker, the DJ found that the fraudulent scheme was systemically planned and designed by Shivasanker over 17 months. The accused merely agreed to the scheme orchestrated by Shivaksanker. His conduct was limited to non-compliant teaching and conduct of examinations, and was therefore participatory, not organisational.

(b) No deliberate steps were taken to bolster the deception and boost the chances of hoodwinking public authorities.

Comparing the present case to Shivasanker, the Defence argued that the accused’s culpability was significantly lower than Shivasanker’s. Shivasanker was the sole director and shareholder of ASTC and was the ultimate beneficiary of the offences. His conduct spanned 17 months, with a total of 37 false certificates issued to 14 foreign workers, compared to the accused’s shorter period of offending conduct, with a total of 20 false certificates issued to seven foreign workers.

The DJ had calibrated the starting sentence for Shivasanker at four months’ imprisonment on each charge, then reduced the imprisonment terms to three months per charge on account of his early plea of guilt. The Defence submitted that the starting point of each of the accused’s charges should be two months’ imprisonment given his “limited culpability and secondary role within the criminal enterprise”.

As for the global sentence, the Defence submitted that the sentences for seven charges – one for each foreign worker – should run consecutively. This would result in a global sentence of 14 months’ imprisonment. As Shivasanker had only received a sentence of 12 months’ and six weeks’ imprisonment, a further downward calibration of the accused’s imprisonment sentence by two months, on account of totality, was required. As such, the overall sentence sought was 12 months’ imprisonment.

The Court’s decision on sentence

I begin my consideration of sentence by stating that general deterrence was evidently the key sentencing consideration for offences of this nature, which involved public safety (Public Prosecutor v Law Aik Meng at [24]). The very purpose of the WSHA was to protect the safety, health and welfare of persons at work in workplaces. The purpose of issuing certificates was to certify competence in metal scaffold erection, supervision of metal scaffold erection and working at height. Each of these activities carried inherent risks. Proper training was required to ensure that workers were equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills in order to perform a particular role at a workplace (Shivasanker at [31]). The offences thereby frustrated the MOM’s regulatory aims in the WSHA and also allowed the foreign workers to illegitimately qualify as higher-skilled R1 workers, attracting a lower levy scheme.

In the absence of a High Court sentencing framework for offences under s 53(b) of the WSHA, I considered the offence-specific harm and culpability factors, having regard to those set out in Shivasanker.

In relation to harm, I accepted that there was no evidence of any actual harm resulting from the issuance of these false certificates, such as actual workplace accidents. However, I agreed with the Prosecution that the potential harm was high because there was a real risk that the foreign workers would use these certificates to seek employment, and be appointed to carry out various roles for which they were not properly trained and assessed, increasing the risk of workplace accidents (see Shivasanker at [32]).

In relation to culpability, I considered the following:

(a) The accused played a central role in the conspiracy. He was directly involved in the conduct of shortened courses with no practical lessons, and conducted examinations by providing answers to the foreign workers.

(b) The period of offending was from July to November 2019. Seven foreign workers were involved. There were three courses in question – MSEC, SMSEC and WAHW.

I did not agree with the Prosecution’s submissions that the offences were premeditated. In my view, the accused merely carried on the scheme when he was a trainer with ASTC, up until he took over as training manager. It was the marketing agent from Royal Multi-Skills, Hossain, and Shivasanker, who had planned exactly how the fraudulent scheme was to take effect at ASTC. Nor did I accept that the accused had taken active and deliberate steps to facilitate deception of the MOM. The Prosecution’s submission in this regard was a mere listing of the different ways in which answers were provided to the foreign workers during examinations. There was no evidence adduced of further deceptions or deliberate cover-ups to increase the difficulty of detection.

When comparing the present case to that of Shivasanker, I agreed with the Defence that the accused’s culpability was lower than Shivasanker’s. This was primarily because:

(a) I accepted that Shivasanker was the one who orchestrated the scheme initially together with Hossain. As I earlier noted, the accused’s role was in taking over from Shivasanker and continuing the operation of the malpractices at ASTC.

(b) Shivasanker’s offending conduct spanned a longer period of 17 months with 37 false certificates issued to 14 foreign workers. This was of a longer duration than the accused’s offending conduct over five months with a total of 20 false certificates issued to seven foreign workers.

With these in mind, I turned to the individual sentence. The DJ in Shivasanker considered that the appropriate starting individual sentence was at least four months’ imprisonment (Shivasanker at [48]). He then gave a sentencing discount on account of Shivasanker’s early plea of guilt and imposed a sentence of between three months’ and three months’ and two weeks’ imprisonment on each charge.

In the present case, given the accused’s lower culpability, I pegged the individual sentence for each charge at three months’ imprisonment. As the accused claimed trial, he was not entitled to a discount for pleading guilty (“PG”) under the Sentencing Advisory Panel’s Reduction in Sentences for Guilty Pleas (around 30%) that was given to Shivasanker. To be clear, this was not an enhancement or penalty for claiming trial, which was within his right to do.

Under s 307(1) of the CPC, as the accused was convicted of 20 charges and sentenced to imprisonment on each of them, at least two sentences must run consecutively. I ordered that the following five sentences run consecutively:

S/No

Charge No

Name of foreign worker

Course

1.

DSC-900915-2023

Yousuf Abu

MSEC

2.

DSC-900921-2023

Rana Juwel

SMSEC

3.

DSC-900924-2023

Husain Mohammad Abu

SMSEC

4.

DSC-900926-2023

Jagdeep Singh

MSEC

5.

DSC-900933-2023

Manik Mohammad Abdul Baser

WAHW

These involved five different workers across a range of courses. It was also in keeping with the one-transaction rule. The global sentence was therefore 15 months’ imprisonment.

Taking a last look at the sentence, I was satisfied that there was no need to make any further adjustments on account of totality. While this sentence was slightly higher than Shivasanker’s global sentence (which was 12 months’ and six weeks’ or approximately 13 months’ and two weeks’ imprisonment), this could be attributed to the fact that (a) a PG discount was not granted on the sentences as the accused had claimed trial; and (b) the higher number of charges the accused was convicted of (20, as opposed to Shivasanker’s 10 proceeded charges).

Conclusion

For the reasons above, I convicted the accused of the 20 charges accordingly. Having considered the evidence of the Prosecution's witnesses in totality, I found that all the elements of the charges were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt. I imposed a sentence of three months’ imprisonment per charge, and ordered that the sentences for five charges – each of which related to a different foreign worker – to run consecutively for a total sentence of 15 months’ imprisonment. In my view, this was a fair and appropriate sentence.

The accused is presently on bail pending appeal.