Lawyer convicted of forgery agrees to resign from Law Society of B.C.
A B.C. lawyer who was sentenced to 22 months in prison last year for his participation in efforts to deceive Canadian immigration authorities has agreed to resign from the provincial law society.
The Law Society of B.C. said in a statement Friday that Roger Balraj Singh Bhatti had reached a consent agreement regarding the society's professional misconduct proceeding against him.
In the agreement, Bhatti admits he engaged in dishonourable conduct in relation to clients he represented who were seeking refugee status in Canada between 2002 and 2014.
The misconduct involved submitting fake medical notes to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in order to obtain adjournments of proceedings, as well as submitting false evidence on behalf of his clients, according to the law society.
"The false evidence included police reports, medical reports and a death certificate that he knew had been falsified in order to support his clients’ refugee claims," the law society said in its statement.
In the consent agreement, Bhatti agrees to resign from the law society and not to apply for reinstatement.
In May 2022, he was sentenced to 22 months in prison after pleading guilty to 17 criminal charges.
The sentencing decision in his case provides additional information on the immigration scheme Bhatti helped orchestrate.
He pleaded guilty to three criminal counts of forgery, six criminal counts of uttering forged documents and eight counts of misrepresentation under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Acts.
The criminal counts all had to do with forging medical documents in order to get hearings postponed. The violations of the IRPA relate to forging medical and police reports "in concert" with a Hungarian interpreter in order to make false claims on applications for refugee status, the court documents say.
The eight counts of misrepresentation all stemmed from refugee claims made by Hungarian nationals who identified themselves as Roma and were seeking refugee status due to persecution based on their ethnicity.
In all, the court heard that Bhatti provided forged documents in five cases. Some of the claims were successful and some were not, but in all of them, Bhatti used the information from the forged documents to plead his clients' cases and deceive the board.
With files from CTV News Vancouver's Lisa Steacy
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
'My stomach dropped': Winnipeg man speaks out after being criminally harassed following single online date
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Pilot reported fire onboard plane carrying fuel, attempted to return to Fairbanks just before crash
One of the two pilots aboard an airplane carrying fuel reported there was a fire on the airplane shortly before it crashed and burned outside Fairbanks, killing both people on board, a federal aviation official said Wednesday.