Months after being called to the Bar, Jaya Anil Kumar doctored her grades for 21 modules in her degree transcript to burnish her academic performance when she applied to join the public legal service, but was not offered a job.

Three years later, the 29-year-old tried the same trick again, forging her results further for 18 modules such that she appeared to hold a Second Upper honours degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Not only was she snubbed again, the disgraced lawyer got herself into hot soup because an employee of the Legal Service Commission Secretariat noticed the disparity in the documents in her two applications.

On Thursday (Jan 18), Jaya was sentenced to a S$10,000 fine.

TODAY understands that she does not currently hold a certificate issued by the Supreme Court to practise law here.

It is not clear who she is working for, but checks reveal she had worked as a research assistant at the Singapore Management University’s Asian Business and Rule of Law Initiative before joining Standard Chartered Bank in early 2016.

Jaya graduated from law school with a Second Lower honours degree from NUS in 2011 and was called to the Bar in July 2012.

Six months later, she applied for a job with the Legal Service Commission using her law degree transcript that she had doctored using the Paint software on her computer.

Her forgery went undetected and she was called up for an interview but did not land a job.

In May 2016, Jaya doctored her degree certificate and transcript again to apply for a job with legal resource service provider R & T Asia Resources.

Five months later, she applied to the Legal Service Commission again, using fake documents and lying that she had a Second Upper honours degree in law from NUS.

A day later, an employee of the Legal Service Commission called Jaya to ask for her consent to request for her class ranking and percentile ranking from NUS. She declined.

The employee called Jaya again later the same day after discovering the certificates and transcripts she had submitted in her two applications differed.

Jaya gave the excuse that she had “mis-scanned” her documents and might have mixed up hers with a friend’s.

Jaya, who was unrepresented on Thursday, faces six weeks’ jail if she cannot pay the fine. She could have been jailed up to four years for the offence of fraudulently using a forged document as a genuine one.

Source:
@BRUDIRECT.COM

by Today

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