Commission Told Chandra Needs To Travel For Surgery

Suspended lawyer Suresh Chandra told the Independent Legal Services Commission (ILSC) that he was offering properties owned personally and through companies in which he and his wife are shareholders security to travel to Australia for surgery.

The properties are situated in Wailoku, Tailevu and Tavua.

Chandra is charged with six counts of professional misconduct and appeared before Commissioner Justice Daniel Goundar yesterday.

The Legal Practitioners’ Unit counsel, Vinti Prasad, said that no exact date was given for the surgery and only arrangements were made, which were not reliable.

Ms Prasad said they would only consider uplifting Chandra’s travel departure if he took a cash under­taking of $2.139 million deposited into the MC Lawyers’ trust account.

She added that the alleged abuse of the trust fund was from October 2016 to September 2019.

Chandra’s lawyer, Devanesh Sharma, said his client does not have $2.139m in his bank ac­count, but Chandra’s properties were worth around that amount, which he was ready to surrender as security.

Mr Sharma said Chandra was also a victim.

He alleged that a highly trusted accounts clerk was swin­dling the money from the trust ac­count.

He added Chandra had never de­nied that the money came out of the trust account and that the clerk who allegedly swindled the money has not been charged due to an on­going criminal investigation.

His ticket was booked for yester­day and was to return in January.

Ms Prasad told the commission that when Chandra came to know about the money missing from the trust account, he did not try to re­imburse the account, he signed in­complete cheques and it was due to his negligence that the money was taken from the trust fund.

Feedback: wati.talebula@fijisun.com.fj