Lawyer reprimanded in Kanishka case

Toronto: A prominent lawyer who appeared for an accused in the Air India bombing case has been reprimanded and fined USD 20,000 after being found guilty of professional misconduct by the British Columbia Law Society.
David Martin was found guilty for submitting fraudulent bills while he was representing Inderjit Singh Reyat by the Law Society while setting aside its earlier order of a six-month suspension on Martin's review plea.
The Law society benchers ruled that suspending Martin was too harsh given that he was unaware the bills were false when he sent them in and intervened on learning of the problem.
A year ago, another law society panel handed down a suspension, a reprimand and a bill for USD 35,000 to Martin, who got into trouble after he hired two of Reyat's adult children to work on the publicly funded defence team, the Vancouver Sun reported. Didar and Prit Reyat then submitted inflated bills on which Martin signed off before sending them on for payment.
The Reyat children, who were doing clerical work, later left the defence team. While finding Martin guilty of gross neglect, the earlier panel accepted that Martin was unaware "that the Reyat children's accounts were not 'valid and proper' prior to submitting them."
17/04/07 Times of India

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Categories: Air India Apr 2007, Foreign Apr 2007, Safety Apr 2007