SINGAPORE – Following an argument with a man in a taxi, Sakthivel Sivasurian got into an altercation with him after they alighted, and punched him. The victim, Mr Manjunatha Louis Ravi, fell and died in hospital five days later from neck and head injuries, in July 2020.

In court on Friday, Sakthivel, 33, was convicted of one charge of voluntarily causing hurt which causes grievous hurt. The relationship between the two men was not mentioned in court documents.

The defence’s position at the 16-day trial was that the initial injury Mr Manjunatha had from the fall was not fatal. Instead, it was when Sakthivel tried to pick him up and dropped him that the initial injury was aggravated and resulted in his death.

According to court documents, District Judge James Elisha Lee said he accepted the evidence from Sakthivel’s lawyer Sanjiv Vaswani that Mr Manjunatha had been dropped twice when Sakthivel and a woman were trying to lift him after he had fallen to the ground.

The judge also said he accepted the evidence that Sakthivel had moved Mr Manjunatha to a grass patch before an ambulance arrived.

The judge added that there was reasonable doubt whether Mr Manjunatha would have died from the initial injury from the fall had he not been “dropped and manhandled”. 

But the judge added: “While the dropping and manhandling of the victim after the fall may have aggravated his initial injury, the situation had arisen purely as a result of the fall. If not for the fall, and the victim’s inability to get up on his own thereafter, (the two of them) would not have attempted to lift or move him.

“In fact, if not for the (injury) sustained by the victim from the fall, the dropping and manhandling of the victim per se would not have resulted in his death.”

According to court documents, Mr Manjunatha, a woman, Sakthivel and Sakthivel’s wife were in a taxi on the way to a Housing Board block in Gangsa Road at around 11pm on July 18, 2020.

A dispute arose between Sakthivel and Mr Manjunatha that eventually led to an altercation between them after they had alighted.

During the altercation, Mr Manjunatha fell and hit his head on the ground, and was unable to get up on his own thereafter. 

An eyewitness called 995, and Mr Manjunatha was taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital.

A scan revealed bleeding on the surface of his brain, along with brain swelling and a suggestion of brain damage. His prognosis was poor, as determined after consultations with neurosurgeons.

The victim was supportively managed in the intensive care unit until his father was able to fly to Singapore to visit him on July 23, 2020. He was then disconnected from the mechanical ventilator, and died on the same day.

An autopsy showed that Mr Manjunatha had a small crack in the bone above his left eye, and a displacement in his spine.

As part of his defence, Sakthivel claimed that after Mr Manjunatha was hit, he took several steps backwards while still facing Sakthivel before stepping on uneven ground and falling.

Sakthivel submitted a Google Street View image from October 2019 to support his position that there was already a hole on the ground where the incident occurred.

The judge said none of the eyewitnesses had seen the victim losing his footing after stepping on uneven ground. He added that based on the manner in which Mr Manjunatha took his steps, as seen in video footage, and the extremely short time between when he was hit and when he fell, it was clear that he had fallen to the ground as a result of having been hit.

“Even if the victim had fallen after stepping into the hole, it would still have been attributable to the hit by the accused,” the judge added.

After Sakthivel was convicted of the charge on Friday, he pleaded guilty to a charge of giving false information to a public servant while out on bail.

According to Deputy Public Prosecutor R. Arvindren, Sakthivel had violated his court-imposed bail curfew hours of between midnight and 6am on Feb 9, 2023, at the Magic World nightclub. He had told a police officer that he was home at 11.07pm on Feb 8, 2023, when he was not.

Sakthivel will return to court in November for sentencing.