Singapore
39-year-old Indian priest at Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple, who received more than SG$2.3 million by pawning gold jewellery of temple deities, failed in his appeal for a lighter jail term on Tuesday. Kandasamy Senapathi, former chief priest of Sri Mariamman Temple in South Bridge Road, was sentenced to six years’ jail by a district judge in May this year. An Indian national, Kandasamy had pleaded guilty to two charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT) and two charges of removing the benefits of his criminal activities from jurisdiction. Six similar charges were taken into consideration during the Indian national’s sentencing. Kandasamy was employed by the Hindu Endowments Board (HEB) in December 2013 and was promoted to chief priest at the temple in July 2018. In 2014, he was entrusted with the keys and number code to the safe in the temple’s holy sanctum, which contained about 255 pieces of gold jewellery valued at about SG$1.1 million. Kandasamy’s lawyer, Divanan Narkunan, argued before the High Court on Tuesday that the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive. Divanan said the district judge had erred by focusing on the misappropriated sum stated in the charges without considering that the money actually obtained by Kandasamy were merely a fraction of the total pawn proceeds. The lawyer pointed to the unique fact pattern in Kandasamy’s scheme between 2016 and 2020, which involved him rolling the pieces of jewellery. Kandasamy would pawn a piece of jewellery for cash and then return on another day to redeem the first piece of jewellery using a second piece of jewellery. The lawyer argued that although Kandasamy received a total of SG$2.3 million, he had obtained only SG$141,054.90 as benefits as most of the pawn proceeds were used to redeem the jewellery and pay off the interest owed to the pawnshops.
