Rishi Kumar Mittal was an RCIC since 2011. By his own annual renewal declarations, he had 2,479 clients in the year ending June 2024 and 3,032 clients in the year ending June 2025. He owned or was affiliated with at least six immigration-related corporate entities operating across multiple provinces and internationally. His staff conducted initial consultations, assessed eligibility, provided immigration advice, arranged job offers, collected fees in cash and through personal accounts, sent clients to border crossings they were not qualified to cross, and pressured complainants to withdraw their College complaints after the fact.
Mittal signed the retainer agreements. He submitted the applications. His name appeared on the correspondence. He was the only RCIC in the operation in any meaningful sense.
He was also functionally absent from every file.
On June 25, 2026, the Discipline Committee permanently revoked his licence and fined him $25,000. The proceeding resolved on a joint submission covering four of the forty-five complaints the College had received against him.
The Structure of the Operation
What Mittal built was not a regulated consultancy in any operational sense. It was a commercial enterprise that used his RCIC registration as the ingredient that made it look like something it was not.
The pattern across all four complaints is identical. A prospective immigrant, typically a foreign national with limited familiarity with the Canadian immigration system, contacted one of Mittal’s businesses. An unlicensed staff member conducted the initial consultation, assessed eligibility, recommended an immigration pathway, and promised results. A retainer was signed, with Mittal’s name on it. Fees were collected, sometimes in cash, sometimes through personal accounts, without proper invoices or receipts. Job offers were arranged for positions the clients never applied for and never interviewed for. When the promised outcomes did not materialize, clients were told to wait, or to pay more, or to travel between provinces on wrong advice, or to sign documents releasing the business from liability in exchange for partial refunds.
At no point in any of the four complaints did the clients have a meaningful conversation with Mittal or any other licensed RCIC. All immigration advice, all instructions, all substantive communications came from unlicensed staff.
What the Files Actually Show
Client A was sent flagpoling at two separate border crossings for a position she had explicitly told Mittal’s staff she was not qualified for. She was right. Both applications were refused for exactly the reason she raised. Between the two refusals, she relocated from Alberta to Toronto at her own expense to establish proof of residency, as instructed. After her complaint was filed with the College, Mittal’s staff contacted her repeatedly to pressure her to withdraw it, and then asked her to pay the outstanding balance on the failed retainer.
Client B arrived in Canada to find that the employer listed on his work permit no longer had work available, that any work would be at a substantially lower wage than the offer stated, and that he would be expected to repay a portion of his wages and purchase a car for deliveries. He lived in his sister’s basement with no income and no way back to Australia, where his visa had expired. When he tried to meet with Mittal or any RCIC at the Global Hire office, he was turned away three times. When he threatened legal action, a staff member called him mentally unstable and told him not to return until he had made a decision and was mentally stable.
Client D paid $5,000 CAD in retainer fees and claims an additional $30,000 CAD was extracted from him by persons associated with the file in India, in cash payments for which no receipts were issued. Mittal does not admit receiving those funds but acknowledges his supervision failures created the circumstances in which it could have happened. When Client D accused Mittal and a staff member of fraud, Mittal obtained a no contact order against him from the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta.
The Restitution Gap
On July 15, 2026 the new regulations establishing a client compensation fund came into force. Under that framework, clients of CICC licensees who suffered harm can now apply to the fund for compensation. The College then acquires subrogation rights against the licensee to recover what it paid out.
What This Means for RCICs
The Mittal matter is not a supervision failure in the ordinary sense. It is what happens when the RCIC licence becomes a commercial product rather than a professional credential. Mittal’s name on the retainer agreements gave the operation legitimacy it did not earn and could not deliver. His absence from the files did not reduce his professional responsibility for what happened in them. It was the source of it.
The scale here is different from other cases the College has decided, but the principle is the same one the College has articulated consistently. You cannot build a commercial operation on the back of your licence and then disclaim responsibility for what the operation does. The retainer agreement creates the professional relationship. If your name is on it, the obligations that flow from it are yours, regardless of who is actually doing the work.
FAQ
1. I own an immigration consultancy and employ staff who handle most of the client work. Am I responsible for what my staff does even if I am not directly involved in a file?
Yes, entirely. The Mittal decision confirms what the College has said consistently across multiple proceedings: as an RCIC and the owner or operator of an immigration business, you are responsible for the conduct of your staff and agents and for ensuring compliance with all applicable statutory, regulatory, and professional obligations. That responsibility does not diminish because you have many files, because your staff are experienced, or because the operational structure of your business places others between you and the client. If your name is on the retainer agreement, the professional obligations that flow from it are yours.
2. My staff are conducting initial consultations and assessing client eligibility before I review the file. Is that permitted?
No. Under the IRPA and the Citizenship Act, providing immigration advice or services for consideration is restricted to licensed representatives. An unlicensed staff member who conducts an initial consultation, assesses a client’s eligibility for an immigration pathway, or recommends a specific program is providing immigration services without authorization, regardless of how that role is described internally. As the RCIC responsible for the file, allowing that to happen is a breach of your professional obligations and a violation of federal legislation. The fact that you later review the file does not cure the initial unauthorized advice.
3. My business is involved in both immigration services and employment recruitment. Is that permitted?
It can create serious compliance risks. The CICC Code prohibits a licensee from being in a conflict of interest where they provide both immigration consulting services and employment recruitment services to a client who is a foreign national. Where both streams of service are offered through the same business without clear separation and without the client’s informed understanding of what the fees are for and who is providing which service, the College has found professional misconduct and conduct unbecoming in multiple proceedings including Mittal and Moye. If your practice involves both streams, the separation between them needs to be explicit, documented, and clearly communicated to every client.
4. A client filed a complaint against me with the CICC. Can I contact them to try to resolve the matter directly?
No. Once a complaint has been filed with the College, you are prohibited from communicating directly or indirectly with the complainant without the College’s consent. In Mittal, staff contacted complainants after complaints were filed and pressured them to withdraw. The panel treated this as an aggravating factor. Contacting a complainant without consent, whether to resolve the matter, to provide updates, or to request withdrawal, is itself a breach of the Code and will compound the consequences of the underlying complaint.
5. What is the CICC client compensation fund and how does it affect RCICs facing complaints?
On July 15, 2026, new regulations came into force establishing a client compensation fund for individuals harmed by the conduct of CICC licensees. Clients who suffered financial harm as a result of an RCIC’s professional misconduct can now apply to the fund for compensation. Once the College pays out from the fund, it acquires subrogation rights and can pursue the licensee directly to recover those amounts. This changes the financial exposure picture for RCICs facing discipline proceedings. Prior to July 15, 2026, the College’s ability to order restitution directly to clients in discipline proceedings was limited, as illustrated by the Mittal decision itself, which was rendered on June 25, 2026, before the fund came into force. Going forward, clients have a direct avenue for compensation and the College has a mechanism to recover what it pays out from the licensee responsible.
Anna Tamir is a regulatory defence lawyer and the principal of Tamir Litigation Law Firm in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Her practice focuses on defending licensed professionals before Ontario’s regulatory bodies, including the CICC, the Law Society of Ontario, the CPSO, and others. She can be reached at info@tamirlitigation.com or 416 499 1676, or at tamirlitigation.com.
This commentary is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Ready for the URL to prep the schema and excerpts when you are.