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The Tribunal heard the matter on 29 July 2026 and handed down judgment on 25 August 2026.
The proceedings began as a conviction case. The SRA alleged that the Respondent had knowingly employed an adult disqualified from employment by reason of his immigration status, contrary to section 21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, for which he had been convicted in January 2024 and sentenced to a 12-month community order.
While defending those proceedings, the Respondent filed an Answer containing citations and quotations from authorities that did not exist, bore incorrect citations, or did not support the propositions for which they were advanced. When the errors were drawn to his attention by the SRA alongside the Divisional Court’s judgment in Ayinde v Haringey LBC [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin), the Respondent’s reply to the SRA was itself produced using generative AI and contained further false material. The SRA then brought a further Rule 14 allegation concerning the use of AI.
Both allegations were proved. The Tribunal ordered that the Respondent be struck off the Register of Foreign Lawyers, and made clear that it would have imposed the same sanction if the AI allegation had stood alone.
The Tribunal accepted the SRA’s submission that there is no distinction in principle between misleading material placed before a regulator, a disciplinary tribunal or a court. It found culpability very high, giving very substantial weight to the fact that the conduct was repeated after the errors had been identified and explained.
The Tribunal granted the SRA’’s application to make submissions on sanction on the basis that the hearing raised points of law of wider interest, and recorded that the issues ventilated may be of wider assistance in future cases.
In Ayinde, the Divisional Court had invited the legal regulators to consider, as a matter of urgency, what further steps beyond guidance were needed. Josh submitted, and the Tribunal accepted, that the problem of lawyer misuse of AI raised an issue of profound public importance concerning the effect of AI and large language models on the administration of justice and the rule of law.
Joshua Hitchens was instructed by the SRA in house legal team.
Read the full judgment here: SRA v Kumar, Case No. 12884-2026
Joshua Hitchens was called in 2018 and practises in commercial, administrative and public law, regulatory and disciplinary work, sanctions and civil fraud. He is ranked in the Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners. He is currently instructed in cases before the UK Supreme Court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Court of Appeal, the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of St Helena and the High Court of England and Wales. He acts in high profile and high value disputes in and public law. Read his full profile, here.
To find out more, contact Lexie Johnson on + 44 (0) 207 427 0801 or Dave Lovitt on +44 (0)20 7353 6381
News 8 Sep, 2026
Call: 2018
