My Lady,

The Petitioner, Moganaraj Mithra s/o Nandi Mithra, is the only son of Mr Nandi Mithra s/o James and Madam Pongamal d/o Veeriah’s four children, both of whom are present today.

It is rare for the ambitions of youth to survive adulthood. Many of us never achieve the glorious employment we dreamed of when we were younger and the pitch of our voices higher. I, for example, never became that fireman, computer game tester or millionaire kung-fu vigilante I used to think deep down I could be. But when that ambition does survive the passage to adulthood, that person is likely to be committed productively to that ambition for a long time.

The Petitioner, in my assessment of him, is such a person.

“My interest in law can be traced back to my childhood as I was astonished knowing that most of the world’s greatest readers such as Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi were lawyers.” Despite his strong early interest in the legal profession, when the time came to take up his undergraduate degree he gave in to his parents’ wish for a medical career.

In 2007-2008, he spent a year doing the Pre-Medical Programme and Foundation in the Russian Language at the Kursk State Medical University. Between 2009 – 2012, he completed his 3 years of the Medical Programme at the same University. But during that time, like a person who knew he was with the wrong person, he acknowledged he did not see a medical career for himself and finally abandoned his medical studies for the pursuit of law.

His journey to where he is standing this morning was long. The Petitioner had to restart his educational path toward a legal degree. He completed his A-Levels in 2014 and then started his legal degree with Brickfields College Asia which has a twinning program with the University of Hull, England. He completed his final year in 2016. After that, he sat for his CLP, passing it in 2018. Finally, he completed his pupilage under the tutelage of Mr R. Rishikessingam of Messrs Rishi & Partners in January 2020. What would ordinarily have taken most of us 5 years took the Petitioner double that time. That is a testament to both his perseverance, commitment and passion for the law and legal practice.

My Lady,

Between October to December 2017, I had the pleasure and privilege of being acquainted with the Petitioner when he did a 3-month internship with my firm. During that time, the Petitioner sat in the same room as me, as all interns at our firm do, and we spent many an afternoon on the office balcony talking about the law, life and everything in between whilst inhaling fresh air.

I have come to know the Petitioner. He possesses a calm, thoughtful, ethical and warm disposition. He was helpful to me during his time at our firm, particularly in a murder case that I was doing at the time at the Shah Alam High Court. It was in that case that I experienced the advantage of the Petitioner’s time in Russia. He was excellent at gathering intelligence. Throughout our trial, he would join the police officers on their smoke breaks, listen to their chatter and report any information of relevance or significance about the case to me. Some of that information eventually was helpful to our client’s defence.

For him, the quote that defines legal life best is No one is above the law because it reflects how equal we all truly are, not just in law but so too in life.

I submit that the Petitioner is a fit and proper person because he possesses the required ethical orientation, moral purpose and commitment to the law. That commitment can be seen in his immersion in the law since his entry. He soaked up a slew of courses related to Oil & Gas, Intellectual Property, Employment Law, Medical Law & Practice and advocacy. He tells me that his favourite book is the one I recommended to him, Letters to a Young Lawyer by Alan Dershowitz, the famed American lawyer and law professor.

His legal role models suggest his moral purpose and ethical orientation; he cites Mr Subash Anand, a legendary criminal lawyer from Singapore, and the late Tan Sri Dr Eusoffe Abdoolcader, one of Malaysia’s greatest legal minds, as his role models, men whose integrity and independence were unimpeachable.

My Lady,

The Petitioner would like to thank the following: His parents for their support, open-mindedness and love; his sisters, Dr Sheela Mithra, Pramila Mithra and Dr Yogeswary Mithra; the partners of Messrs Rishi & Partners, Mr R. Rishikessingam and Mr Daljit Singh a/l Harjit Singh; ASP Wiswannandan; Indira Devi James; and T. Thangaraju.

I believe the Petitioner’s cause papers are in order and my learned friends have no objection to his Petition. I pray for the Petitioner, Moganaraj Mithra s/o Nandi Mithra to be admitted and enrolled as an advocate and solicitor in the High Court of Malaya.

Called on 24.7.2020