Manoj Nanda: registration suspended by OMARA on 21 Jul 2025

What the Authority decided

On 21 July 2025, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (the Authority) decided to cancel the registration of Mr Manoj Kumar Nanda (MARN 1568823) following an investigation into four complaints regarding the Agent’s conduct. The Agent must not be registered for a period of five years from the date of the decision.

The Authority was satisfied that the Agent breached his obligations under clauses 2.1, 2.4, 2.8, 2.18, 2.10, 2.9, 5.2, 6.1, 6.2, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 and Part 7 of the former Code and sections 13, 14(1), 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22(a), 32, 33, 39(c), 42, 49, 54, 55 and 56 of the Code.

The Authority found that the Agent:

• Knowingly provided false and misleading information and fraudulent documentation to the Department in support of visa applications.
• Lodged visa applications with the Department without a sponsor’s knowledge or consent.
• Failed to comply with migration law and his duty not to undermine migration law.
• Failed to act in the legitimate interests of his clients and in accordance with their instructions.
• Failed to provide service agreements, invoices and receipts to his clients.
• Failed to have due regard to his client’s dependence on his knowledge and experience.
• Failed to keep clients fully informed in writing on the progress of their applications.
• Provided false and misleading advertising on his migration agency website.
• Failed to act professionally, ethically, and honestly with integrity.
• Failed to act with competence and diligence.
• Failed to treat his clients with appropriate respect.
• Failed in his duties in relation to client money.
• Failed to maintain proper records and return client files upon request.
• Failed to maintain his knowledge of migration law.
• Failed to accept responsibility for his misconduct and the impact of his actions on his clients.
• Acted without regard for the adverse impact his conduct would have on the reputation of the migration advice industry.

The Authority was also satisfied that the Agent was not a person of integrity, or otherwise not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance.

A decision summary can be found below.

On 13 August 2025 the Agent lodged an application for review of the cancellation decision with the Administrative Review Tribunal. On 16 July 2026 the ART set aside the cancellation decision and imposed a three year suspension on the Agent with conditions commencing on the date of decision.

The decision summary above is reproduced from the Authority's published record of this decision, which also carries the decision document itself. Nothing has been added to it.

What a suspension means if this was your agent

The registration is suspended for a set period. During it the agent may not lawfully give immigration assistance — not to you, not to anyone. Section 280 of the Migration Act makes paid immigration assistance by an unregistered person a criminal offence, and a suspended agent is unregistered for the duration.

This is the outcome that most often catches people mid-matter, because the agent is still there and the suspension has an end date. If your matter can wait, it may be able to wait. If you have a response deadline from the Department inside the suspension period, it cannot.

If this was your agent: the first week

1. Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
2. Check who the Department is writing to. A Form 956 makes an agent the authorised recipient, and correspondence sent to them is taken to have been given to you. A deadline sent to an inbox nobody reads is still a deadline.
3. Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
4. Work out what was paid and what was done. Ask for the itemised invoices and receipts the Code requires. Routes to recover money work better started early.
5. Complain, if there is something to complain about. A published decision does not close your own file. Where to complain, and what OMARA can and cannot do.
6. Only then, find someone else. A new agent needs the file and the dates. The first five steps are what make that first conversation useful instead of exploratory.

What this decision does not mean

It is a decision about one individual on one date. Only a person can be a registered migration agent — a company cannot — so it says nothing about anyone else at the same practice. Decisions of this kind are reviewable, and bars and suspensions expire. The register is where the current position lives.

Decision information sourced from the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. VisaBid is not affiliated with OMARA or the Department of Home Affairs.