High Court refers barrister and legal consultant to BSB and Attorney General after finding fabricated documents and false witness statements in London property litigation

Mr Justice Linden in the High Court of England and Wales has referred a barrister, Joseph Chiffers of JSC Chambers, and a legal consultant employed by that chambers, Amar Lodhia, to the Bar Standards Board (BSB) and the Attorney General respectively, following findings of serious misconduct in defamation and malicious falsehood proceedings arising from a London residents' association dispute. The judge found that Lodhia, described on JSC Chambers' website as a supervised legal consultant, had fabricated or doctored documents, submitted witness statements containing false evidence, doctored a court order, and made false N215 certificates of service. He also found that Lodhia's declaration in a costs statement (N260) claiming £82,800 in costs was untrue, and that Lodhia lied to the court when he said he had paid his counsel's fees. The Court of Appeal rejected applications by both Lodhia and Chiffers for permission to appeal the earlier costs and directions orders. The judge made a three-year general civil restraint order against Lodhia, preventing him from issuing further proceedings without court permission. He also noted that Lodhia had been subject to a two-year civil restraint order imposed in 2022 by Mrs Justice Collins Rice, and had a bankruptcy order made against him in June 2024. The referral to the Attorney General opens the possibility of criminal contempt of court proceedings. The BSB referral will require it to investigate the supervision practices at JSC Chambers, including whether Chiffers had knowledge of Lodhia's conduct and whether adequate supervision systems were in place. Linden J accepted that Lodhia had partially attributed errors to doing things he had not instructed it to do, a claim the judge's reasoning effectively treated as an unsatisfactory explanation rather than a defence.