Your complaint to the SRA
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from: Shantanu Panigrahi <shanpanigrahi3000@gmail.com>
to: enquiries@martintolhurst.co.uk
date: 9 Jun 2023, 16:08
subject: Fwd: Your complaint to the SRA
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Dear Martin Tolhurst
Further to this correspondence, I have since received an email of the report of the Solicitors Regulation Authority that you should find self-explanatory.
Yours sincerely
Dr Shantanu Panigrahi
3 Hoath Lane
Wigmore
Gillingham
Kent ME8 0SL
United Kingdom
Tel: 07967789619
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to: Shantanu Panigrahi <shanpanigrahi3000@gmail.com>
date: 9 Jun 2023, 14:40
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Many thanks for your enquiry, we are most grateful to you for contacting us and your enquiry is important to us. A member of our New Enquiries team will be in touch with you shortly.
With thanks,
Martin Tolhurst Solicitors
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Sean Kent <Sean.Kent@sra.org.uk>
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2023 at 14:55
Subject: Your complaint to the SRA
To: shanpanigrahi3000@gmail.com <shanpanigrahi3000@gmail.com>
Sensitivity: General
Dear Dr Panigrahi
I have completed a review of your complaint about our service. Please find attached a letter explaining my findings. At the end of the letter are details of the next step available to you should you wish to seek an independent review of our conduct and dealings with you.
Yours sincerely
Sean Kent
Corporate Complaints Officer
Corporate Complaints Team
Solicitors Regulation Authority
sean.kent@sra.org.uk
www.sra.org.uk
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We are the regulator of solicitors and law firms in England and Wales. The Solicitors Regulation Authority Limited is a company limited by guarantee. Our registered offices are: The Cube, 199 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN. Our company registration number is: 12608059.
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Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Cube
199 Wharfside Street
Birmingham
B1 1RN
UK: 0370 606 2555
Int: + 44 (0)121 329 6800
DX: 720293 BIRMINGHAM 47
sra.org.uk
Our ref: RGC 000100925
Private & Confidential
FAO Dr Panigrahi
By Email only: shanpanigrahi3000@gmail.com
9 June 2023
Dear Dr Panigrahi
Your complaint about the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
I am an officer within the Corporate Complaints Team at the SRA. I consider your
complaint about our actions and look again at how we have conducted our activity as
the regulating authority. I do not reinvestigate to provide a new outcome but I check
that we have followed our procedures and assessed your concerns appropriately.
I can recommend a further review where I can see that our enquiries have not been
sufficient, or that we may not have acted correctly in the provision of our service to
you.
I have read that you remain unhappy with the decisions we have made regarding the
report you made to us about Olives Solicitors Ltd (the firm), and others unidentified
involved with the duty solicitor scheme in Kent. You are concerned about the quality
of the service you have received from them in countering a police investigation into
you for malicious communications.
By its nature, my review is retrospective. I consider the decisions we have made
based on the material that we have seen. I gauge whether or not those decisions
have a foundation based on a reasonable assessment of the facts that we have
obtained during our evaluation of your report. As well as reviewing our file, I have
read the outcome letter from the Investigation Officer (IO) and the letter of Mr Smith,
Complaints Officer.
I think it helpful to say at the outset that my review of our file has not identified any
significant failings with our earlier assessment. I am not referring the matter back for
further consideration. There is very little I can add to the explanations that you have
already received, both of which fairly state our position.
We take all of the reports made to us seriously, but we do not act to provide a
resolution to the satisfaction of individuals. We assess if there are concerns about a
solicitor or firm’s ongoing fitness to practise and a wider risk to the public or the
Sensitivity: Confidential
integrity of the legal profession. We may not act where we believe that any breach of
our regulations has been inadvertent or of very limited scope.
We are concerned when solicitors appear not to have provided you with an
appropriate service. However, problems with the quality of work produced may be
more appropriately considered by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO), who lead on issues
of service. LeO may be able to provide a resolution to you that is outside of our
scope. There can be an overlap between service and conduct, and we do take care
to ensure that we have assessed correctly who is the most appropriate authority for
the reports we have received. The IO has noted that you have made a report to LeO,
and that this is the appropriate agency to deal with your concerns.
I do understand that it must be disappointing and frustrating to believe that the firm
have not acted in your best interests. However, concerns about the advice provided
by a solicitor is not a regulatory matter. We could not see that the firm has breached
our Standards and Regulations.
On a review of our file, I have seen the content of the email from your address of 17
May 2023. I can see that the IO has already advised you of the unacceptable nature
of its content. You have previously stated that your email account has been hacked,
potentially by a government sponsored agency. I understand that this forms the basis
of your defence to the various complaints made to the police about you. However, I
do think it is important to emphasize that we do not tolerate comments of a sexual,
abusive and misogynistic nature made toward our staff or others.
As part of my review of our service I have reconsidered the warning that was given to
you by the IO. I am now going further, and will explain that as it is your assertion that
your email account is subject of hacking, then it would be most appropriate if all of
your future correspondence with us is by post only. Furthermore, whilst you retain the
ability to seek an independent review of our actions, we will not be corresponding
further with you regarding this case.
Overall, based on the evidence you have provided, we consider that there is
insufficient evidence to suggest the firm or solicitors that you have identified to us
have acted unethically.
In summary, I found that the IO’s assessment of your report had been proportionate
to the concerns that you had raised, and the decision made reasonable based upon
the material we have seen. I could not find any reason to recommend further activity,
nor could I find that we had acted incorrectly.
This concludes my review of your concerns at stage two of our complaints process.
You do have the opportunity for our handling of your complaint to be independently
reviewed. I have included details of how to do this below.
Yours sincerely
Sensitivity: Confidential
Sean Kent
Corporate Complaints Officer
Corporate Affairs Directorate
Solicitors Regulation Authority
Email: sean.kent@sra.org.uk
If you remain dissatisfied
If you are unhappy with our handling of your complaint about us, you can seek a
review of it from the Independent Reviewer. It is not able to consider concerns about
our decision, in this case not to act against Olives Solicitors Ltd.
It can review our service to you, for example, whether we have answered your
concerns, explained matters clearly and followed our procedures and timescales.
It will decide whether your case is suitable for a full review. You can find more
information about its remit at www.sra.org.uk/sra/complaints/complaints-policy.page
(paragraph 67).
To request a review of your complaint, please contact the Independent Reviewer
within 20 working days i.e., by 8 July 2023
How to contact the Independent Reviewer
By email: complaintsreview@cedr.com
By phone: 020 7536 6000
By post:
Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR)
100 St. Paul’s Churchyard,
London
EC4M 8BU
United Kingdom
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