Life
Serial Litigant
Deman's legal claims in employment courts have reportedly cost the government almost $2 million.
| An Indian academic, declared a “vexatious litigant” and banned by the British Attorney General from bringing employment claims in Britain has moved his claims to Northern Ireland, which has a separate judicial body.
53-year-old Indian finance lecturer Suresh Deman brought over 40 discrimination employment complaints in the past decade alleging discrimination, securing $400,000 in settlements before he was barred from future claims last year.
Justice Underhill said Deman had “an obsession that he is a victim of racial discrimination which exists without reference to the evidence in any particular case.” Between 2001 and 2005 he received eight settlements from British Universities, the last for $30,000 in November 2005 from Swansea University. He is now pursuing an 11-year-old claim against the Association of University Teachers and Officers in Ireland for failing to offer him proper legal counsel in his discrimination complaints against Queen’s University in Belfast. Deman’s litigation pursuit started in 1996 at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania where he won a $40,000 settlement following his dismissal. His legal claims in employment courts have reportedly cost the government almost $2 million. Deman, who lives in London, has applied for nearly 1,000 academic jobs and often submits alternative applications under non-Asian names to demonstrate evidence of discrimination. |
