Former government lawyer struck off for dishonesty by backdating documents

Syed Tauseef Rizvi was working temporarily as a solicitor for the private law division of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department from January 2013 to March 2014.

He was alleged to have provided a court and a litigation opponent with four items of correspondence and a witness statement signed by him with a statement of truth stating that he had served his client’s defence when this was untrue and to have created a backdated letter to the court and his opponent.

Rizvi then asked his client representative to backdate a defence to be filed at court to conceal his failure to serve his client’s defence in time.

The tribunal heard that Mr Rizvi had been under pressure at the time due to a bereavement but held in its ruling that there were no exceptional circumstances to the case to justify a lesser penalty than striking off.

He was also told to pay costs of £4,000.

Mark Smulian