Oh boy, here we go again.
Okay, just as a quick run over what's been said here and in other
threads:
Those who suspect that making the sentences heavier would open up a
whole new can of worms are pretty much spot-on. I will not confirm
the rumour that other people were actually involved here, but from
open source data, two interesting points arise:
- what about the safety officer who wasn't at his post?
- what about the MO who approved sending a PES B man to a PES A
course?
Just these two points alone should indicate that the coverage of
the case was woefully inadequate, and I will leave it up to your
individual judgement to work out if there were any more angles to
this case that were conveniently left out.
For what it's worth, I can't make a reasonable argument that the
two LTAs do not deserve their sentences. Note that this does not
extend to saying that they do deserve those sentences. On the other
hand, Pandiaraj and Balakrishnan were quite clearly
scapegoated.
Someone asked why the case made it to civil court. There is an
agreement between Mindef and the courts that if a case is of
sufficient public interest, the case can be brought to civil court.
In the media barrage, the Defence Minister said, "We will get to
the bottom of this" publicly, creating the opening for said clause
to be exercised.
