Court Rejects Yellowknife Accountant’s Bid to Stop Disciplinary Hearing
A Supreme Court justice in Canada’s Northwest Territories has rejected Yellowknife accountant Biswanath Chakrabarty’s request to halt a disciplinary hearing over a complaint filed by the Town of Norman Wells. In a written ruling on November 10, Justice Annie Piché said the application was premature, noting that the disciplinary process had not yet reached a stage that justified court intervention. The complaint was referred for a hearing in November 2025 by Chartered Professional Accountants NWT/Nunavut, the regulatory body for accountants in the territories.
The dispute centres on a report prepared by EPR Yellowknife Accounting Professional Corporation, led by Chakrabarty, concerning the town’s payroll and corporate credit card use between 2015 and 2018. The town said it believed the report was a forensic audit and only learned it was a review-level report through a press release. A separate complaint filed in 2021 over the report’s description was resolved through mediation in 2022, including an apology. Chakrabarty’s lawyer argued that proceeding with the new complaint would amount to double punishment, but Justice Piché said the argument could be raised during the disciplinary hearing.
The ruling follows a separate decision in September, when the court dismissed a $26.6 million lawsuit filed by Chakrabarty and EPR against the Town of Norman Wells. The lawsuit alleged the town’s complaint to the accounting regulator was intended to damage their reputation. Justice Karin Taylor ruled that the regulatory process was the proper avenue for addressing the dispute, leaving the disciplinary proceedings to continue.
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