The Fiji Court of Appeal has ruled the Commissioner of the Independent Legal Services Commission was correct to remove Suva lawyer, Suresh Chandra from the roll of legal practitioners, order the closure of his law firm, MC Lawyers, and impose a fine of $500,000 on him.
Mr Chandra, who is a former chairperson of the Electoral Commission, was found guilty on December 8, 2021, on six charges of professional misconduct.
As the commissioner found, Mr Chandra had placed full responsibility on one of his employees, Ashwini Prasad, for the handling of all trust account cheques.
“His failure to supervise and monitor the operation of the trust account provided the opportunity and enabled Ms Prasad to tamper with the cheques by altering the amount in numerals and adding the narration of the (altered) amount in words to fit, which can only be categorised as gross negligence,” stated Justices Chandana Prematilaka, Pamela Andrews and Gus Andrée Wiltens in their ruling.
“As the commissioner found, it was not a delegation of the appellant’s obligations as trustee of the trust account, it was a complete abdication of the appellant’s obligations. It required a serious response.
“It does not assist the appellant to say that the cheques were made out to the office account, not Ms Prasad. The cheques were drawn on the trust account, which holds clients’ money.
“Therefore, whatever or whoever the payee, the funds came from clients’ monies. The current total claims show the extent of the losses claimed by clients.
“The appellant’s breaches of his obligations in relation to the trust account were not a one-off event, nor did they occur over only a brief period of time. As the commissioner found, they were ongoing.
The appellant’s breaches can only be described as being at an extremely serious level, requiring a commensurate response.”
