_{Ram in Canada, and Archie at Trinity.}

A man who was at the centre of a Canadian university scandal changed his name and is now a trainee solicitor in London, RollOnFriday can reveal.

Canadian media reported in 2020 how Ram Ganesh, then the President of Ryerson University’s student union, was impeached and reported to the police after questions were raised about spending on the student union’s credit cards.

An audit commissioned by Ganesh’s replacement and carried out by PwC found $260,000 was spent on three Ryerson Student Union credit cards held by Ganesh, the vice-president of operations, and the financial controller between 2018 and 2019. The RSU determined that $99,477 of the expenditures were “undocumented”.

The RSU stated in its financial review that “While an undocumented transaction doesn’t mean that the money was misspent, it does mean the money was spent without following RSU financial policies”.

Purchases under Ganesh’s name identified by Ryserson’s student newspaper, the Eyeopener, allegedly included $2,280 at a Toronto bar, $1,375 at a sporting goods shop, hundreds of dollars on plane tickets and Airbnbs, $196 on a towing service and $185 at a shisha lounge in Mississauga.

According to the audit, Ganesh also “retained a new lawyer to assist with the union’s legal affairs” and paid for the lawyer to take a first-class trip to India, resulting in legal and travel expenses totalling $36,000. The review stated that “it does not appear the lawyer provided work product to justify these expenses”.

Quizzed by the Eyeopener, the union’s lawyer said at the time, “The charges were incurred on an RSU corporate card that is used by multiple individuals. As a result, while a certain Executive Committee member’s name may appear on a receipt, that does not indicate that the individual incurred that charge”.

The university terminated its operating agreement with the union following the scandal, stating that “The university has lost confidence in the RSU’s ability to represent students with good governance and to supply the services that students pay for”, but the union successfully overturned the decision.

Although the student union reported the matter to the police, stating that "We look forward to the Toronto Police Service becoming an important partner in our organization's effort toward delivering justice to the students we represent”, it does not appear that the police progressed any investigation further: Toronto police were unable to locate a record of the matter when contacted by RollOnFriday.

The RSU also said in 2021 that it had decided not to pursue legal action against Ganesh and the other former student union executives because “the cost to litigate the matter would be greater than what the RSU would actually recoup from these employees, thus resulting in a greater loss of student money.”

The Eyeopener’s team said they had been unable to contact Ganesh when he “walked off the face of the earth” after giving a “’peace out’ sign” as he left a union meeting.

However, internet sleuths claimed this week to have tracked him to England, where they said he had changed his name to Ramganesh Ragupathy and then Archie Ragupathy.

The amateur detectives identified that Ganesh attended Trinity College in 2023, having picked him out of the Oxford college’s 2023-24 annual report.

It includes a photo of Ganesh and lists a 'Ramganesh Ragupathy' as having arrived from Swansea University for a Masters of Business Administration with a scholarship from the Said Business School. It also states that an 'Archie Ragupathy' received a half blue for American football.

RollOnFriday has confirmed that Ganesh is Ragupathy, who is now a fourth seat trainee at Hogan Lovells. He is also the secretary of the City of London Law society's Tax Law Committee.

The lawyer declined to confirm whether he disclosed the matter to Hogan Lovells when he applied for his training contract, telling RollOnFriday on Wednesday, “I believe that it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on this at this time”.

A Hogan Lovells spokesperson said, “We are aware of allegations concerning the misconduct of one of our trainee lawyers and are looking into it. As this is an ongoing internal process, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”