Lawyer’s father charged with bribing traffic police clerk for contacts of accident victims
SINGAPORE — A 70-year-old legal executive was charged on Friday (April 27) with allegedly bribing a traffic police clerk to obtain the contact numbers of people involved in traffic accidents. This was allegedly so that his daughter, a lawyer who works in the same firm, could get more clients.
Gulzar Raja Singh Sandhu, who was in charge of meeting and interviewing clients at Clifford Law LLP, faces 33 charges.
These include eight counts of corruptly giving a total of S$2,500 as gratification to the clerk, and 24 counts of contravening the Official Secrets Act. The 63-year-old clerk, Madam Khatijah A Manap, was jailed four and a half months in 2016.
Raja faces another count of abetment as he allegedly instigated a man to withhold information to law enforcement agencies if he was ever questioned on his referral fee offer.
If convicted of corruption, he could be jailed for up to five years, or fined up to S$100,000. He could be jailed for another two years, and fined up to S$2,000 if found guilty of each charge of receiving information protected under the Official Secrets Act.
For perverting the course of justice, he could be sentenced to up to seven years' imprisonment, and/or fined.
Raja is currently out on S$5,000 bail, and will return to court on May 28.
According to court documents from Mdm Khatijah's case two years ago, Raja and Mdm Khatijah were acquainted in 2008 through a traffic accident the latter was involved in. A relative of hers had referred her to Raja's daughter, Ms Viviene Sandhu, a lawyer with Clifford Law.
According to her profile on Clifford Law's website, Ms Sandhu's main area of expertise is insurance litigation, and she has represented many insured claimants who were involved in ship collisions, motor accidents, and fatal accidents, among others.
After finding out that Mdm Khatijah worked as a clerk with the Singapore Police Force, Raja approached her and asked if she wanted to work with him by selling the contact details of people involved in traffic accidents.
Mdm Khatijah accepted the offer a few days later.
She would gather accident victims' contact numbers randomly from investigation papers that she handled and pass them to Raja. Each time victims engaged his firm, Raja would reward her with about S$200.
In total, Mdm Khatijah leaked details of 23 accident victims to Raja and earned at least S$2,500 between August 2010 and February 2013.
Their arrangement was only uncovered in 2013 after an accident victim who was contacted by Mdm Khatijah and Raja twice in two years for separate accidents complained to a senior Traffic Police officer.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau on Thursday issued a press release to state that it "takes a serious view of any corrupt practices and will not hesitate to take action against any party involved in such acts".
