UK High Court lets Indian-origin barrister return after Oxford CV lie appeal

London,UPDATED: Jul 1, 2026 21:00 IST

An Indian-origin lawyer who was disbarred from the legal profession in the UK after falsely claiming to have studied medicine at the University of Oxford has won a High Court appeal against the punishment. Anurag Mohindru, 51, had been removed from practice after being found guilty of professional misconduct, but the court has now reduced the sanction to a suspension that expired on Tuesday, clearing the way for him to return as a barrister.

The High Court said the case involved misconduct from many years ago that had not been repeated. In court reports, Justice Johnson said: "The public is capable of understanding the difference between a practitioner who has recently acted dishonestly, or whose dishonesty forms part of a continuing pattern, and one whose misconduct occurred many years ago, has not been repeated, and whose subsequent conduct has demonstrated a sustained record of integrity." He added: "In such a case, public confidence may be maintained by a sanction which marks the gravity of the dishonesty without permanently excluding the practitioner from the profession."

Mohindru was charged by the Bar Standards Board with engaging in dishonest and/or discreditable conduct. An independent tribunal last year disbarred him for professional misconduct after finding that he had acted dishonestly by giving false information on his curriculum vitae during his application for tenancy at 23 Essex Street chambers in November 2012.

At earlier hearings, the watchdog said he had brought the legal profession into disrepute. BSB records state: "He knowingly misled or attempted to mislead members of those chambers by asserting that he had studied biomedical science and/or medicine at Oxford University, which statement(s) he knew to be untrue in that he knew he had not attended Oxford University," with the offence linked to events more than 13 years ago.

An updated entry in the Bar Standards Board records now describes Mohindru as "suspended from practice between 7 October 2025 until 30 June 2026". The High Court heard that he had studied medicine at St George's University in the US before completing a postgraduate bar training course at the University of the West of England in Bristol in 2004. Mohindru, who holds the title of KC, was called to the Bar of England and Wales by Middle Temple in London in 2004.

Mohindru has appeared in several high-profile cases over the years, including one involving England cricketer Ben Stokes after a nightclub brawl in 2018. With the High Court overturning his disbarment and replacing it with a suspension that has now ended, he can resume practice as a barrister.

With PTI Inputs

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