A senior barrister has been accused of falsely claiming medical qualifications and sporting achievements to boost his career prospects.
Anurag Mohindru KC, 50, a criminal barrister at Foundry Chambers in London, faces two disciplinary tribunal charges of professional misconduct. Opening for the Bar Standards Board, James Counsell KC told the five panel tribunal: ‘Regrettably, Mr Mohindra has deliberately exaggerated his educational achievements and qualifications in an attempt to improve his tenancy prospects and that deception has been discovered.’
Counsell said that Monhindru, called in 2004 and taking silk in 2020, had ‘made false allegations on three separate occasions’ in his bid to join 23 Essex Street chambers (now 23ES). Before his application, Counsel said, Monhindru told a member of the set that he qualified as a doctor and was dual qualified; in his tenancy application he told the panel that he had read biomedical science at Oxford University and had a medical qualification. Finally, in his CV, he claimed he had studied medicine at Oxford University.
Counsell said that suspicions arose during Mohindru’s tenancy interview when he talked about his cricketing exploits. Counsell said that Mohindru told the panel that he had played professional cricket for the bar, Lashings Cricket Club and MCC and that he got a cricketing ‘blue’ – the term usually refers to someone who has represented Oxford in the ‘varsity’ match against Cambridge University. While the interview panel ‘agreed that he was a compelling candidate with a good junior practice’, Counsell said that ‘something about his account caused [two of the interviewing panel] …. both of whom were keen cricketers, to have doubts about what he was saying’.
Their doubts were not allayed after reading a copy of Mohindru’s CV in which he stated that he had studied medicine at Oxford University from 1993 to 1994, then medicine at St George’s University School of Medicine (USA) from 1994 to 1998 and then took an LLM in commercial dispute resolution. ‘He gives his medical experience as being at the Lyndon Johnson Hospital in Houston and the UMKC University Hospital in Kansas City, although no dates are given and he does not say whether this experience led to a qualification,’ said Counsell.
He told the tribunal: ‘The panel noted that Mr Mohindru was saying that, rather unusually, he had spent only one year at Oxford University and had not listed his college.’
After a 'heated' phone call between Mohindru and two members of the panel, Counsell said Mohindru withdrew his application. Counsell told the tribunal that ‘inquiries of Oxford University indicate that neither the university nor the medical school had any record’ of Mohindru having studied there – a fact, he said, Mohindru ‘has now accepted’. Counsell said that Mohindru did matriculate into the pre-medical programme at St George’s in August 1994, completing it in May 1995, after which he matriculated into the university’s Doctor of Medicine programme in 1996, completing the basic science portion, but he did not complete the full MD programme.
Mohindru, who is represented by Mark Harries KC and London firm Kingsley Napley, denies the charges.
The panel heard that, in his defence, Mohindu denies that he knowingly provided false information and claims that the false information did not come from him. Summarising statements provided by Kingsley Napley on behalf of its client, Counsell said Mohindru ‘cannot be expected to recall and does not recall the content of a short interview which was conducted 10 years ago other than to say that he would not have said anything to anybody that was deliberately misleading or dishonest as to his background or qualifications.’ He continued: ‘Their client may have been misunderstood or misinterpreted and/or the panel may have misremembered the discussions which took place in interview’.
Counsell explained that Mohindru said that he would not have said that he went to Oxford, but ‘may has discussed studying at a college in Oxford’ – because he had attended d’Overbroeck’s, a private school in the city, between September 1993 and June 1994. In relation to the alleged discrepancies in his CV, the prosecutor told the tribunal that Mohindru denies being the author of any inaccuracies, claiming that the metadata of the CV reveal that at least three individuals have been involved in the creation, modification or saving, at least one of who is now known to the client.
