A British Columbia immigration lawyer with deep ties to the province’s South Asian and political communities has been sentenced to 22 months in prison after pleading guilty to 17 charges, including forgery and misrepresentation.
Balraj Singh “Roger” Bhatti, 63, was indicted in 2020 and accused of conspiring with foreign nationals to file fraudulent claims for refugee protection in Canada. At that time he was disbarred from the Law Society of British Columbia.
In announcing the charges, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said Bhatti, based in Delta, British Columbia, worked with translator Sofiane Dahak in crimes involving people coming from Central Europe and committed between 2002 and 2014.
The CBSA began investigating Bhatti in 2012. Bhatti began practicing law in 1983 and branched out into immigration law in the 1990s.
The Canada Border Services Agency opened an investigation into Roger Bhatti’s immigration law practice in 2012 (CBC)
In his sentencing reasons, recently posted online, British Columbia Provincial Court Judge Mark Jette wrote that at the time of the crimes, Bhatti was one of the busiest lawyers in the Lower Mainland representing clients seeking Convention refugee status.
The court found that Bhatti falsified notes on behalf of his family doctor and others saying clients were unwell in an attempt to delay or postpone hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).
The notes often say the client has had a heart attack, hearing loss, or has kidney stones. The doctors whose letterhead was used for the documents testified in court that they did not prepare them.
The court said Bhatti had “submitted Hungarian police reports and/or medical records which he knew to be false with the intention of causing the IRB to reach a conclusion in favor of his clients”.
Bhatti’s lawyers, including former BC Attorney General Wally Opal, asked for a suspended sentence for their client, who had no prior convictions.
Jetté refused a suspended sentence because of the “seriousness of these crimes,” he wrote.
“The fact that Mr. Bhatti acted in his capacity as a lawyer throughout, the impact that Mr. Bhatti’s conduct has had on the integrity of the conventional refugee system in this country, and the high degree of moral culpability of Mr. The Bhattis are demanding a sentence of institutional prison.”
Community Relations
The sentencing reasons included sections that described the workload Bhatti was under representing so many clients.
His lawyers submitted several letters to the court, including one from former MLA Moe Sihota, who is married to Bhatti’s wife’s sister, describing the toll Bhatti’s workload and commitment to his clients was taking on his health.
A clinical and forensic psychologist also provided evidence that Bhatti suffered from severe depression at the time of the crimes, which was exacerbated by his work habits.
“It was apparent that Mr. Bhatti’s busy practice and work habits were taking a toll both physically and emotionally,” Jetté wrote.
The reasons also weighed how a sentence to be served in prison could further undermine Bhatti’s health and his responsibilities to his family and community.
Reputation “damaged beyond repair”
Bhatti’s father, Kesar, was president of the Khalsa Diwan Society and was instrumental in building the Sikh Temple on Ross Street in Vancouver. His wife, Debbie Parhar, was a special assistant in Mike Harcourt’s office when he was premier of British Columbia. She later became an accountant in Bhatti’s office.
“He is part of a tight-knit Indo-Canadian community; his reputation within this community has been damaged, possibly irreparably,” Jetté wrote. His wife has suffered and will continue to suffer as a result of his actions.
Jetté also considered aggravating factors in the sentencing, writing that the creation of false medical and police reports “was a complex and premeditated course of conduct that continued for years and affected numerous claims.”
Sentence translator
In mid-June 2021, Dahak pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence of two years less a day with conditions that included house arrest for the first eight months, evening curfew for the next eight months and 100 hours of community service. He was also fined $14,000.
The CBSA said in 2020 that most of the plaintiffs in the Bhatti and Dahak crimes were not refugees and had been removed from Canada.
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