Pass/Fail

The Law Society of Saskatchewan Hearing Committee  barred application for admission until December 2018 as a result of an applicant’s false submission of a passing grade in Evidence: 

The amended Formal Complaint alleged that Ms. Chaukla is guilty of conduct unbecoming a Student-at-Law in that she did, in the context of her application to be admitted as a member of the Law Society of Saskatchewan, intentionally mislead the Law Society of Saskatchewan by submitting an electronic document pertaining to her National Committee on Accreditation exam results that she had falsified by changing a failing grade to a passing grade.

From the agreed statement of facts

On or about July 17, 2015, Ms. Chaukla provided an email to the Law Society that included digital “screen shots” detailing her NCA results. One of the screen shots that Ms. Chaukla provided indicated that she had received a grade of “Pass’ in relation to her May 6, 2015 Evidence exam. This was advanced by Ms. Chaukla as an accurate digital screen shot image of her grades taken by her directly from the NCA Website.

Upon review of the NCA grade screen shots, it became apparent to the Director of the Admission and Education Department, Andrea Johnston that Ms. Chaukla’s most recent Evidence grade for the May 6, 2015 session indicating a ‘Pass” was in a different font than the other grades she had submitted from the NCA website. Ms. Johnston placed a call to the administrators of the NCA program to verify Ms. Chaukla’s grades. On July 20, 2015, NCA Examinations Manager, Christine Mayer, provided confirmation of Ms. Chaukla’s grades to Ms. Johnston. The report indicated that Ms. Chaukla had received a grade of “fail” on her Evidence exam from the May 6, 2015 session. On July 20, 2015, Ms. Mayer also logged into Chaukla’s Candidate Portal as Ms. Chaukla to confirm what Ms. Chaukla would have seen when she logged in and provided a screen shot to Ms. Johnston clearly illustrating a failing grade.

On July 20, 2015, Ms. Johnston and Jody Martin, Director of CPLED, telephoned Ms. Chaukla to discuss the situation. The call was transcribed. During the call the discrepancy was raised with Ms. Chaukla. She was adamant that she took the screen shot from the NCA website using her Apple MacBook via the ‘command+shift+3’ key combination and that the screen showed a grade of “Pass”. Ms. Chaukla suggested that she would be contacting the NCA administrators to figure out how this could have happened. Ms. Chaukla repeatedly denied that she had altered her grade before submitting it to the Law Society.

A forensic examination followed the denial

As a result of the outcome of the report regarding the screen shot, and the indicators consistent with the image modification, the Law Society made the decision to further its investigation by having the computer used to generate the screen shot analysed. Ms. Chaukla was asked in writing to produce the computer she used to take and send the screen shot in question. Ms. Chaukla’s counsel responded a short time later on August 10, 2015 and provided the computer given to him by Ms. Chaukla. The computer was forward to C.S.I. with a request that they undertake a forensic analysis to determine the origin of the screen shot submitted by Ms. Chaukla.

Findings

“ Based on a thorough analysis of the MacBook Pro submitted to the Law Society of Saskatchewan by Ambika Chaukla, there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that the laptop was used to record the screen shots from the NCA Portal on 07/17/2015. Furthermore, there is evidence that there were concerted efforts to make changes to the laptop, in an apparent effort to make it appear that it is owned by Ambika Chaukla. This laptop was in “sleep mode” when the screen shots were purportedly taken, and these images, along with other related materials were added to the computer at a later date, most of which originated from the Hotmail account of [Ambika Chaukla]. The images which were sent to the Law Society of Saskatchewan did not exist of the analysed MacBook Pro until between 07/22/2015 and 07/26/2015.

  Efforts were made to validate the claims, including an exhaustive search of the computer for any reference to the activities claimed by Ambika Chaukla; however, I am not satisfied that the computer used to download the images from the NCA Portal on 07/17/2015 has been produced for examination.”

The Student-at-Law then admitted the falsehood and as a result 

Ms. Chaukla is barred from applying to become a member of the Law Society of Saskatchewan until December 21, 2018.

She also must pay $5,000 in costs . (Mike Frisch)