Called to the Bar by the Inner Temple 2001
Qualifications & Professional Associations
- LLB (Hons) London School of Economics
- Criminal Bar Association
- Society of Asian Lawyers
Specialisations
Rajinder has a wide range of experience in both defending and prosecuting. His broad criminal practice spans the range of serious crime from murder, attempted murder, drug importation to armed robbery, false imprisonment and public order offences. He has also appeared in cases concerning sexual offences involving minors.
Rajinder has expertise in road traffic matters at all levels from the magistrates court to the Divisional Court. He has recently judicially reviewed a conviction for failing to provide a specimen that is now listed for final hearing before the Divisional Court. Rajinder has previous experience in criminal judicial reviews where the conviction has been quashed. He has also successfully appealed against sentence in the Court of Appeal.
Rajinder is a fluent Punjabi speaker.
Present instructions include:
R v Juned Miah [2009] (Winchester Crown Court): Junior counsel for the third defendant in an eight handed major drug importation. It is a complicated drugs conspiracy involving over two years of covert surveillance. The case is listed for 8 weeks.
Recent notable cases include:
R v Peter Joyce [2009] (Central Criminal Court): Junior counsel for the defendant (sixteen years old) in a twelve handed murder, attempted murder and violent disorder case. The case concerned a fatal stabbing between gangs in Stoke Newington. The defendant was acquitted after a successful half time submission of no case to answer.
R v Thavapalasingham [2008] (Central Criminal Court) (VHCC): Junior counsel for the first defendant in an eight handed attempted murder trial. The re-trial lasted over three months and involved complicated issues of disclosure regarding a prosecution informant. Such were the problems regarding disclosure the first jury was discharged in 2007 after two weeks. The case concerned gang warfare between Sri-Lankan gangs in the Wembley area.
Green & Green Ltd v Staines Magistrates Court [2008] EWHC 1443 (Admin): Counsel for the applicant in a matter where a decision made by magistrates’ concerning criminal procedure was successfully quashed in the Administrative Court.
R v Malik [2008] (Court of Appeal): Defence counsel in a multi handed money-laundering case. Defendant pleaded guilty at trial and was sentenced to 32 months imprisonment. The sentence was successfully appealed and reduced to 21 months imprisonment.
R v Vyas [2007] Prosecution counsel in a case concerning a Hindu priest accused of sexual activity with a child, sexual assault on a child under 13 and sexual assault on 2 adults. All of the complainants were members of the same family.
R v Miah [2006] Defence counsel in a case where there was an application for an anti-social behaviour order regarding kerb crawling in East London. This was one of the first times where anti-social behaviour orders had been used to tackle the problem of kerb crawling. The case attracted national press coverage and was featured in The Guardian newspaper.
