Singapore employer lends moral supprt to her illegal Indian employ

Singapore, Aug 31 (UNI) A Singapore employer is likely to sponsor her Indian employee for a permanent residency in the city state, despite he being convicted on charges of forging a university degree and using another person's passport.

Mrs Ivy Singh-Lim, an Indian-Chinese mixed Singaporean, said Shivalingam Chandrasekaran was her best employee, managing a small farm "Bollywood Veggies" in Singapore.

Chandrasekaran entered Singapore in July 2002 by stating in the employment pass application that he was Arumugam Sitrarasu and had graduated from Madurai Kamaraj University in India with a botany degree.

District Judge Aedit Abdullah jailed Chandrasekaran for two weeks and fined 2,000 Singapore dollars for using a misleading passport to enter Singapore on 2 Feb 2002. Chandrasekaran had used his cousin Arumugam's passport.

The Judge also fined him 4,000 Singapore dollars for lying in immigration documents.

Mrs Ivy-Singh Lim had hired lawyers from Singapore's leading law firm to fight Chandrasekaran case. She attended the court hearing to support Chandrasekaran and paid the fines yesterday.

Citing Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong's recent call to get back dedicated foreign employees to work in Singapore even though they had been convicted for offences, Mrs Singh-Lim said she would appeal to the authorities to let Chandrasekaran to continue to live in Singapore and would adopt him as her son.

"We shouldn't just look at qualifications. We should look at the quality of the person, the nature of the person," the Straits Times quoted Mrs Singh-Lim,who is also Singapore's top sports personality and patron of the Singapore netball association.

UNI