Law student seeks court order to prevent alleged harassement from solicitor

A law student wants a High Court order preventing a Dublin-based solicitor from harassing and intimidating her.

Sumaia Samanta is seeking an injunction restraining solicitor Imtiaz Khan, practising under the style and title of IMK Solicitors, from deliberately and punitively harassing her, intimidating her and causing her intentional emotional distress.

She also wants the court to apply the terms of the injunction to any alleged agent, associate or person acting on Mr Khan’s behalf.

Represented by David O’Brien, instructed by RNL Solicitors, Ms Samanta says she holds a law degree from Bangladesh and is currently studying at the Law Society of Ireland with a view to qualifying as a solicitor.

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She claims she approached the defendant, who is based in Mountjoy Square in Dublin, in late 2022 seeking advice on becoming a solicitor.

In her affidavit to the court, she claims that on learning that she is from Bangladesh Mr Khan offered her a job where she would help bring in more Bangladeshi clients to his firm.

The plaintiff, with an address in Leixlip, Co Kildare, says her role included promoting the firm via her social media and YouTube channel to members of Ireland’s Bangladeshi community.

She says she was to be paid a commission for every new client she brought in, that her travel expenses would be paid and that she would be given a written contract of employment.

She claims that despite bringing in clients to the firm she was never paid or provided with a written contract and, as a result, made a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) about Mr Khan.

Since making the complaint, she claims, she has been subjected to a malicious campaign of intimidation and harassment “designed to pressure me into withdrawing” the WRC claim.

She said that last December she was instructed to attend the firm’s Christmas party and take pictures of those in attendance at the event. Images and videos were posted on the firm’s social media, she said.

However, shortly afterwards, she claims, she was aggressively told by a person at the law firm, who she did not know, to take down the images and videos, which she did.

She was then informed by email that her employment at the firm had been terminated.

She believes she had been “teed up for a sanction” so the defendant’s firm could avoid making the payments owed to her.

She claims that earlier this year, after she filed her complaint with the WRC, she received a letter on behalf of the defendant threatening to sue her.

The letter allegedly demanded that she pay €26,000 or €2,000 to 13 people whose data rights had allegedly been breached over posts and images she had allegedly posted on social media.

She claims that her health has suffered and the allegations made against her have been “soul-destroying”.

She said she was fearful for her career prospects in Ireland if that action was brought against her and, at one stage, she did withdraw her claim to the WRC before reinstating it.

She said her solicitor wrote to the defendant seeking to find the identities of the 13 people whose rights were alleged to have been breached by the plaintiff. She claims no response has been furnished to that request.

In addition, her solicitor contacted an individual who attended the Christmas party to see if they had made a complaint against the plaintiff over posting the event images.

Her solicitor was informed that several individuals at the party had no issue with the plaintiff and had not instructed the defendant to take proceedings on their behalf over the posts.

She and her solicitor, who has called on the defendant to withdraw the threat to sue her over alleged data breaches, says the letter from the defendant was another attempt to make her withdraw the complaint to the WRC

Matters escalated in recent days, she says, as she received several calls from an associate of the defendant’s saying he and his wife would sue Ms Samanta for defamation with the assistance of the defendant’s firm.

The associate, who she said is acting in concert with Mr Khan, stated that he and the defendant would “make my life hell”.

As a result of the defendant’s alleged actions, she has come to court seeking various orders including an injunction and damages against Mr Khan.

Her injunction application came before Mr Justice Brian O’Moore on Thursday afternoon while only she was represented in court.

The judge was not prepared to make any temporary orders against the defendant while only Ms Samanta was notified of the application.

He granted her permission to serve short notice of the injunction application and scheduled for the case to return to court on Monday.