Today, the Wangaratta County Court delivered a sentence to Onkar Group Pty Ltd, operating under the name Bakeology, as well its director, Maninder Singh Nagi, aged 48, after they previously pled guilty to five offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The company was convicted with a fine of $1.1 million for recklessly endangering a person at the workplace which led to serious injury. In addition, an accumulated fine of $250,000 was levied for incomplete adherence to work safety requirements, such as not providing a risk-free workspace and failure to safeguard non-employees from potential health or safety risks.
Mr. Nagi was also penalised with an aggregate $80,000 fine for neglecting his responsibilities as a company officer to provide a secure and healthy work environment. His contraventions were solely due to his lack of taking reasonable care. Furthermore, the court issued an adverse publicity order that mandates the disclosure of the offence, its repercussions, and the applied penalties in a related trade publication.
A detailed account by the court unveiled that the tragic incident occurred when a delivery driver, 12 hours into his overnight shift delivering baked goods across Albury and various northern locations in Victoria, deviated onto the path of an oncoming truck at Kialla West, south of Shepparton, in August 2022.
The 27-year-old driver lost his life in the subsequent collision, while the truck driver remained unscathed. A thorough investigation carried out by WorkSafe revealed that ahead of this fatal accident, the driver had been working continuously for 17 nights without adequate intervals for rest, covering approximately 796 kilometres each night.
This horrific event only exemplifies the critical importance of readily available solutions like Bluesafe SWMS (Safe Work Method Statements) and other WHS management systems. Onkar Group and Nagi could have mitigated these risks by implementing effective policies, maintaining reasonable work demands, and ensuring adherence to fatigue prevention techniques such as continuous breaks.
WorkSafe’s Chief Health and Safety Officer, Sam Jenkin, urged employers to realise how driver exhaustion not only places the employee at risk but also endangers the wider public. He emphasised the potential devastation when collisions involve other motorists or dwellings, and the dire need for responsible employer action.
“This unfortunate incident exemplifies how having realistic tasks and robust safety practices, like the implementation of a Bluesafe WHS Management System, can serve as the deciding factor between an employee returning home safely or losing their life tragically,” Mr Jenkin asserted.
To mitigate fatigue-related dangers, employers are advised to:
Email: media @ worksafe.vic.gov.au
Phone: 0438 786 968
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Original article link: https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/news/2025-09/company-and-director-fined-143-million-after-fatigued-drivers-fatal-crash
