A silk has successfully appealed against his disbarment over a lie told more than a decade ago when he claimed in a Chambers interview he had been to Oxford University for a year.
Anurag Mohindru KC, called to the bar in 2004 and who took silk in 2020, was disbarred by a disciplinary tribunal after he was found to have lied to an interview panel in 2013. In his application to a criminal law set he had not referred to Oxford University but during the interview a panel member asked an initial question about cricket and if he had represented Oxford. Mohindru said yes, and then later edited his CV to claim that he had attended Oxford for a year.
Mohindru subsequently withdrew his application and instead accepted a tenancy at a different set. More than eight years later, an anonymous complaint was made to the Bar Standards Board.
Mohindru denied the allegation he had lied. However following a seven-day hearing a five-member tribunal found one of the allegations proved. Mohindru was disbarred and ordered to pay £54,780 costs.
He appealed to the High Court against sanction and costs. The costs were conceded and reduced to £36,155 to ‘reflect that the tribunal only found one out of two charges proved’.
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Ruling on the appeal, Mr Justice Johnson said: ‘The authorities consistently recognise that there are exceptional circumstances where the regulatory objectives... do not require the imposition of the ultimate sanction for dishonest conduct.
‘The tribunal applied a more rigid test than that laid down in the authorities,' the judge said. It 'proceeded on the basis that it was not permitted to give any material weight to the passage of time and the exemplary conduct of Mr Mohindru’s professional career for over a decade since the dishonesty.'
The judge said Mohindru’s lies were not told in the course of the provision of regulated legal services nor for any tangible or material gain as Mohindru withdrew his application for tenancy. ‘Of course, he should not have lied,’ the judge said. ‘But it is far from the most egregious dishonesty.’ The tribunal’s narrow approach 'was a material misdirection'.
Quashing Mohindru’s disbarment, Johnson said: ‘The lapse of time does not excuse the dishonesty. Nor does subsequent good conduct expunge it. But those matters are relevant to an assessment of what is required to maintain public confidence in providers of regulated legal services.'
It would be wrong to impose the ultimate sanction 'merely because dishonesty is present', the judge said. 'Mr Mohindru has been suspended from practice for eight and a half months. That is a sufficient sanction.’
