Two Ontario Sikh Temples face lawsuit over $13-million in loans linked to former Liberal MP

Two Ontario Sikh temples have been pulled into the widening array of legal and business controversies related to lawyer and former Liberal MP Rajvinder Grewal.

A pair of companies are suing the temples for the return of more than $13-million in loans obtained using the religious groups’ property as collateral. Mr. Grewal’s law firm allegedly failed to properly execute paperwork associated with the loans, a claim that has been repeated in other litigation faced by the former politician. In addition, $250,000 from an alleged cheque fraud connected to his firm was routed to a temple’s bank accounts.

Mr. Grewal and the law firm he founded and named after himself – RSG Law Professional Corporation – are at the centre of a series of civil claims related to lending and real estate development. The collective claims top more than $200-million and some cases involve allegations of fraud. None of the allegations have been tested in court.

Mr. Grewal is also facing disciplinary action from the Law Society of Ontario that could result in the revocation of his licence to practice law; currently he has agreed to an undertaking not to practice while awaiting a procedural hearing over the LSO’s probe against him scheduled for January, 2027.

The civil lawsuit against the temples, or gurdwaras, Sikh Spiritual Centre Toronto (SSCT) and Nanaksar Thath Ishar Darbar, seeks the return of funds lent to them. The suit was filed in September in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice

Both temples are federally registered charities and share some members of their boards of directors, according to public records that are current up to 2024. It is unclear whether the loans were intended to support charitable activities.

The plaintiffs in the case are SSMT Management Inc. and Oculus Mortgage GP Inc. (which occupy the same office suite in Hamilton), run by Jason A. Waxman. He is also president of Addison Wealth Management Inc., a company that lent money to borrowers connected to other civil cases related to Mr. Grewal. Mr. Waxman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

According to the court filing, the president of both Nanaksar and Sikh Spiritual Centre Toronto is Amarjit Singh Deol, who is also listed as a personal guarantor of the loans. Another guarantor, Gurmail Singh Nirman, is identified as a treasurer and member of the board of directors of SSCT. Joining them as a personal guarantor of the loans is Mr. Grewal, but according to federal charity records he is not a member of either board of directors.

SSMT claims that on April 25, 2025, it extended a $10-million loan secured against the Sikh Spiritual Centre Toronto. Then on May 20, the original loan was expanded to a $15-million commitment and was also to be registered against the Nanaksar gurdwara property located in Brampton.

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The interest rates were as much as 15 per cent (about $187,500 a month) for the first six months, rising to 24 per cent after that (or about $300,000 a month).

According to the September filing, RSG Law’s owner and operator, Davinder Khattra, was supposed to register the second charge against the Brampton property. However, SSMT argues that Mr. Khattra never fulfilled that part of the deal, leaving SSMT vulnerable to arguments that the loan never really existed.

The alleged manipulation of records for loans on land title shows up as a pattern in cases related to RSG Law. The Ontario Land Registry Office has frozen more than 100 properties “in connection with allegations of fraudulent discharges registered,” according to court documents filed by the LSO regarding Mr. Khattra.

Mr. Khattra’s licence to practice law has been suspended by the LSO Tribunal, and his continuing disciplinary case could result in losing his licence.

A preliminary ruling by Justice Frederick L. Myers on Sept. 11 ordered that the Brampton property not be sold or encumbered pending the outcome of a hearing scheduled for mid-January.

“My understanding is that this matter has been resolved,” Mr. Grewal’s lawyer, Simon Bieber of Adair Goldblatt Bieber LLP, said in a Tuesday e-mailed statement.

Maria Naimark of Tyr LLP is representing SSMT in the claim and while she declined to comment in detail on the case, she said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday that “It has not been resolved,”

However, there are more financial ties between the gurdwaras and RSG Law, according to records spread across multiple court filings.

In the LSO’s application against Mr. Khattra, it included records of payments from RSG Law Professional Corporation’s trust account that showed several large sums of money transferred to the SSCT gurdwara – $250,000 on April 7 and April 10 – and another $250,000 payment to Guru Nanak Darbar, the more common name for the Brampton gurdwara.

In a related matter, another $250,000 that was the proceeds of an alleged cheque fraud against the Bank of Nova Scotia – involving Rajkiran Sidhu, another lawyer connected to Mr. Grewal – was also traced to have been paid to SSCT through RSG Law. Mr. Sidhu is facing disciplinary action at the LSO Tribunal.

Mr. Sidhu alleges in an August affidavit to the LSO that he was the victim of a fraud scheme by someone identifying himself as Parminder Singh, who on April 13 and 14 gave him three cheques totalling $6,095,000. Two of the cheques were from numbered companies that the bank said it could not confirm existed, However, on April 14, Mr. Sidhu transferred $5,314,000 from his trust account to five parties at his client’s direction.

The bank has traced the funds sent by Mr. Sidhu and has indicated in court records that one of those parties was a company called 16410031 Canada Inc., which received a $1,414,000 wire payment. On the same day, 16410031 wired $1,410,000 to RSG Law’s trust account with instructions to pay that money out to 11 other payees.

One of those payees was SSCT, which received $250,000 of the allegedly fraudulently obtained money.

Lawyers for The Bank of Nova Scotia did not respond to requests for comment, but filings indicate that this money has not been recovered.